I really do believe that the paywall will work. People seem to under estimate the importance of the brand and association with the paper and its approach and views.

News is not just generic, it is also about opinion and how one engages with it.

I maybe biased as I have signed up for The Times iPad app. This is a revalation and changed my mind about paying for new. This app and the experience and how I consume it. It showed me what I would pay for: ability to consume like a news paper versus just some links and stories on screen, amazing visuals and video added content – and the ability to access UK Times on my travels (I am out of the UK most of the work week and love that I can now have my home paper and exeperience).

I do believe that paying is the way to go – as we ahve seen with pay TV, etc. The key will be how people add value to the experience and to the news.

Gary I agree with you on the iPad. If i had one i would doubtless pay to access whatever content i wanted — including The Times or The Guardian. I think that is down to the platform and environment. I accept it on the iPad as I do on an iPod where i pay for music, but I don’t accept it on the web.

In terms of environment, the way I personally consume the web is very quickly on the go, quick news hits, jumping from one site to another. I’m not paying for that. Whereas the paper itself or the iPad is much more immersive, slower and richer experience that i pay/wld pay for.

I believe that the Paywall is a smart move by Times and think nearly all independent newspapers will follow this idea as the decline in sales for actual physical newspapers necessitates this as a new revenue stream (particular with the intro of the iPad etc etc.)

However having said this and speaking as a student I think that we will definitely not benefit from this. From experience of my previous two years study I have on numerous occasions accessed the Times and other newspapers to read archived articles on political areas and stories that I am including in projects and essays. Having to pay for this only adds cost to an already expensive process of education, that is the British University system.

So on two accounts it is a good and a bad idea. From a business prospective I think it is the correct move, but something may have to be done to help the thousands of students that use online newspapers as references for essays and projects.

@MrChrisReeves you raise a good point re the archive, which is why i would not have a problem with an iTunes style micropayment system where i could buy one feature or column in the way i would a single track. A transportable digital wallet would be another options — allowing users to shop across a range of sites.

Yes I’m willing (and planning) to pay.

The content speaks for itself and shoot me for saying it, but the lack of excessive ad placements makes for a pleasant experience – much like the BBC sites.

It is essentially giving me everything I would want from a daily newspaper, except in a far more convienient and accessible format. I don’t pay £1 per day for the print version (or £1.50 Saturday / £2 sunday) simply because print newspapers are a pain. I have to remember to go and buy them, carry them around, find space at my cluttered desk to open them, they’s harder to ‘navigate’ and every day I’ve created uneccesary waste.

To pay £2 per week for the same content online is a bargain in my opinion. It’s a more convenient and accessible format than the print version and a more pleasant user experience than most other news sites due to the design ebing optimised for the user, rather than for SEO and ad placements.

Most importantly though, I agree with their principles.

Fraid I can’t agree with Gary (and Gordon) about the iPad. I subscribed to the Times for a month and probably only managed to download the paper three or four times and then spent very little time lokign through it.

For a generation I think the days of browsing through online news content from an individual source have gone forever. I have an amazing source of news editors already – the people I follow on Twitter.

Will the paywall work? I think The Times will sign up a few die hard readers, but overall it will be a massive flop.

The reason why media is in such a tricky financial position is that brands have never valued online media (and I put part of the blame for this on mainstream media comanies who in a bid to protect revenues have consistently pushed brands towards print and downplayed online). There is very real value for brands in online media, but the CPMs they are currently paying make successfully monetising online media extremely difficult.

Hi Gordon, I’m happy to pay for what I like – which is why I paid this morning for The Times online. But so far, I’ve discovered the paywall doesn’t work properly on my desktop browser. It also crashes Safari, the browser on my iPhone.

Therefore, I can’t actually read the paper that I’ve now paid for.

If these are teething problems, they seem like avoidable ones. And your point about blogs being put behind the paywall is pertinent. I used to read a number of Times blogs via RSS. Although it’s still entirely possible to do this from behind the paywall (The FT uses RSS, for example), The Times has opted not to allow this.

It makes me wonder whether those in Wapping could have done more to understand how people read news online. To reiterate, I don’t mind paying but if anything, would want access to be even easier than it was when it was free – not unstable and restrictive.

I’m not going to give up on The Times, I just hope they can tweak the model in the weeks ahead, to make the site more stable, and to realise the blogs could potentially provide the social “juice” the paper needs to remain relevant to those outside the paywall. That relevance is important to the paper’s (and the brand’s) long-term future.

@GavSDigital You make an interesting point (“the lack of excessive ad placements makes for a pleasant experience”), but i just don’t visit it enough in the week. Maybe I spend too much time scanning RSS feeds and tweets.

@AshleyNorris – Agree it will be a flop, and re the iPad i suppose thinking about it I would only have time on Saturday or Sunday and then really that’s tied up with the Guardian and Observer.

@psigrist Great point re doing “more to understand how people read news online” as the whole paywall strategy seems to also be sacrificing the ability of people to share and comment. This has now become a paying privilege. I’m not how if you are blogger for the Times that will work. I mentioned the legal blogger who had thrown the towel in and one other also said they were going to see how it works.

I still like the Times, but I lost a lot of respect for it when it and its red top stablemate turned their political allegiance on a dime prior to the last election.

I think this is probably the right decision. While the Times will lose traffic this will cut infrastructure costs down while pushing them up for anyone who get extra traffic as a result. Those readers who remain will be the profitable ones.

This problem affects all print media. I blogged about it in respect of model making magazines: http://philsworkbench.blogspot.com/2010/04/is-web-future.html

It’s not about whether the paywall model works or not – it does. It’s about pricing and whether the audience values digital products the same as physical. All the research (and the learnings from music and book publishing) says they don’t – at least not yet). The smart money is on micropayments as a way to open up the premium content market for all types publishing and shift consumer behaviour. Murdoch’s approach does not make good commercial sense (I’m sorry, it just doesn’t), but I think it’s more of an anti-Google positioning strategy for him right now.

@Vincent Agreed, Murdoch seems to have taken an almost blugeoning approach. micropayments and flexibility has to be the answer.

Micropayments might well be the future, but they have been the future for the best part of a decade and still no-one has made them work in a really big way. I suspect that Google will eventually do it as they have the reach to get to everyone but that’s a long way off.

The example of the music business is interesting as many artists are finding that giving away music for free doesn’t pay the bills and unless you are a massive artist then concerts alone won’t do it either.

The trouble is that the model is broken. If web user want content than one way or another they are going to have to pay for it. Adverts don’t work, what does ? Murdoch knows he has to try something and even if it doesn’t work, since it doesn’t cost me anything I’m glad he has tried.

@Phil Parker For sure micropayments have been on the way for a long time, but the platforms are there now. There is Apple with iTunes and Journalism Online (News Corp is an investor).

But good point re Google. It is going to do something. There was the report recently that Google was talking to publishers. It was indicated that it come be another micropayment type offering with content bought directly via Google Checkout with one click.

Never. For that kind of money minus premium content it’s just very funny