Guardian:
A newspaper in the former steel town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has taken a giant leap for the US news industry by starting to charge for some of the content it posts on its website.
With proprietors of many of the top US newspapers now actively considering charging for web content amid dire financial projections, the decision by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette marks one of the first examples of a general interest title to make the jump. Until now the rare examples of charging – notably the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times – have tended to be specialist financial publications.
In fact, the NYT tried this too. It didn't work.
The new charging scheme has been branded PG+, and attempts to attract paying readers to its internet content by giving them the cachet of belonging to an exclusive club. It promises to give subscribers extra content they will not find on the newspaper's website, as well as direct access through web chat conducted through the site to columnists and reporters, invitations to special events and offers and perks.
Hmm. Cachet? Not sure about that one. I feel for them. We're all trying to figure, and refigure, out how to make money in this medium. And it's real work writing for a living. So I won't knock their efforts to figure out how to make their online work viable. I'm just not sure that this is the answer.
