Its too early to draw any conclusions, but the The New York Times, which introduced its paywall on March 28, seems to be doing well with paying subscribers.

It has racked up around 224,000 digital subscribers as of the end of the second quarter proving that its readers aren’t running for the free content hills beyond its paywall.

In addition, it has another 57,000 paid subscribers to e-readers and replica editions giving it a total of 281,000.

In addition to those paid digital subscribers the NY Times Co said it had approximately 100,000 users sponsored by Ford Motor Company’s luxury brand, Lincoln, who have free access to NYTimes.com and smartphone apps until the end of the year, and around 756,000 home-delivery subscribers with linked digital accounts, who receive free digital access.

Early on after the launch its pay wall the New York Times saw traffic fall – although far too early to draw conclusions.

The news of its growing number of digital subscribers is encouraging coming against a background of falling overall revenues, which were down 2.2% to $576.7m, pulled down by a 6.4% decline in print advertising.

Earlier this week the NY Times put out a really interesting piece on why people share online: the ‘Psychology of Sharing’.

As for why they are paying that has to come down to excellent content, but the ability to continue to have its content shared socially remains crucial to the New York Times paid content strategy (as it said prior to its paywall launc: Social media is the strength of NY Times not weakness as paywall unveiled).

Janet L. Robinson, president and chief executive officer, The New York Times Company, called the second quarter a “historic one” marking as well it was marking the launch of the paywall on the world’s biggest newspaper.

She said there had been a “positive consumer response to the digital subscription packages” which she took as a strong indication of the value that users place on New York Times content.

“Our digital model exemplifies our growing ability to capitalize on secular trends that show consumer willingness to pay for content across multiple digital platforms,” Robinson said.

She added that the company was particularly pleased with how its paid content initiative was going in relation to key metrics, including the volume of paid digital subscriptions, overall traffic rates and digital advertising revenues.

“The digital subscription model is a long-term effort, and its full impact on revenues will be more evident over the course of the year as we progress past the early stages of the plan. Our ability to further monetize our digital content will provide us with a significant new revenue stream in the second half of this year,” she said.

Check out this time lapsed video of The New York Times homepage