The Daily Mail says it has no plans to follow The Times in erecting a paywall on its website, but will experiment with charging for niche and mobile content.

At an investor’s day presentation yesterday Martin Clarke, digital publisher of Mail digital, made it clear that the MailOnline’s website would not begin charging readers and would stay free like The Guardian and others have said they intend to.

Just say no to pay walls

• Argues MailOnline is uniquely placed among UK newspaper sites and “is now big enough to make the advertising model pay”.
•Says readers “will not pay to consume general news on the web” and all news has traditionally been free – except print.
•Says staying free also “allows us to expand our news brand internationally”.
•Says a pay-wall “MIGHT make a little money – we will make a lot”.

However will experiment with some charges

•Says people pay for “the convenience of print in recognition of the special cost of production and delivery of a tangible product and because they purchase it whole”.
•This is why the MailOnline believes people “will also pay for news on mobile devices”.
•Says “we will also experiment with niche paid-for web content”.
•Has a focus on “converting new customers to paid-for products in print and on mobile devices”.

Targeting the portals: Yahoo! and MSN

Says MailOnline offers a broader range of content than any other news provider and that TV, radio and web portals “can’t compete with our unique tone of voice and world view”. Will use this market position to target the portals MSN and Yahoo! having already passed Yahoo! News and MSN News & Weather.

All true. Well it does have a “unique tone of voice” although the online product looks quite different to the paper and is very celebrity led. Does that influence the fact that 78% of the UK MailOnline audience “do not buy Mail newspapers”?

However, Clarke’s presentation said they are “are exactly the kind of people who should” buy the paper …yeah but don’t, so why is that?

•Says the choice of content is “heavily influenced by real-time minute-to-minute monitoring of reader activity – “while preserving core brand values”. Not sure how you do that when your real-time monitoring of real time news appears to serve up a lot of celebrity gossip stories.

Four of the stories above the fold are celebrity and one is hard news.  Just check the FrontPage headlines today:

1. A new blast of chaos: Another volcanic ash cloud bound for UK delays reopening of British airports.
2. Brian McFadden blasts ‘pig face mole’ Kerry Katona in foul-mouthed Twitter rant.
3. Kelly Brook’s ex Jason Statham moves on to model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
4. Jude Law can’t take his eyes off Sienna Miller as she struts around LA in denim hotpants.
5. Doting daddy Joe Cole proudly cuddles his newborn daughter after a family day out in the park.

Who are MailOnline readers?

• Says they are the elusive “midBritons” to a man and woman; they are a younger, richer version of the people who read our papers; but most “don’t read our papers meaning we have extended our brand-reach to “almost ten million new customers every month”.

Market position as UK’s biggest online newspaper

There is no hiding from the fact that the Daily Mail online is huge. Its last ABCe figure confirmed it as the most popular newspaper website, growing its daily average browsers by 5.1% from January to reach 2.27 million in February.

•Claims almost “double the levels of engagement of our newspaper rivals”.
•Ruthless focus on repeat daily traffic rather than casual visitors via Google and as a result “50% of daily UK traffic is direct”.
Puts its engagement levels at 144% year on year growth and 153% growth in the numbers of minutes spent on the site.

To me the Daily Mail online strategy looks overly reliant on serving up trashy celeb news and fighting to be the biggest provider of that news in the market that the celebrity mags and other tabloid newspapers are also chasing. The MailOnline has just been better at it so far. Is that a long-term strategy?

Follow me on Twitter