Over the past year publications including The Times, Sunday Times and The Economist have adopted paywall business models that require readers to pay for online content.

Depending on who you speak to, it will either work or it won’t. As the debate rages on and publishers try figure out the best model for their business, the web infrastructure across the globe is improving and it is affecting online news distribution. Read More »

A week after The New York Times announced figures to that shows its paywall is working its longtime digital chief Martin Nisenholtz has announced his retirement.

Nisenholtz, a former ad man who spent 16 years at the paper, launched its paywall, as well as insisting that social media was crucial to its success, and leaves the paper in a strong place, but with issues to deal with. Read More »

Yesterday, I blogged on how The New York Times paywall was working as its digital subscriber numbers grow.

Today the Financial Times has issued an update on how its paywall is going from strength to strength and has broken through a significant barrier. Read More »

The New York Times put out a press release yesterday, the big headline of which was that it has recorded a slight rise in the print circulation of the paper’s Sunday edition, but the real story was that its total digital subscriptions are on the up. Read More »

I wrote earlier this year that News International was rethinking its anti-social media paywall policy with regards whether it would introduce a paywall for the Sun modelled on the one employed by The Times.

It had intially been reported that The Sun would follow in the footsteps of the News of the World, which saw its traffic plummet after its paywall went live, but that turned out to be the least of its problems. Read More »

So The Independent and The Independent on Sunday is to axe its overseas editions, as it looks to cuts its cost base. Is this a surprise? On the face of it, no. The Guardian did the same thing in the Summer.

Publishing newspapers overseas is massively expensive, but what’s interesting is that it might lead the paper to errecting a paywall for international readers. Read More »

This is a week in newspapers to remember. Yesterday Guardian News & Media announced a new strategy that it is calling “digital-first”. It is the strongest admission we have yet had that the newspaper industry knows that it is moving ahead to a future where print is receding in the rear view mirror.

Losses are mounting, the Guardian reported they hit £33m, more cuts need to be made, in the order of £25m says Brand Republic, and significantly an admission from editor Alan Rusbridger that readers no longer read newspapers in the same way, that leads to the question: why publish them in the same way? Read More »

Interesting report on Journalism UK about News International possibly rethinking its closed, anti-social media or iron curtain, approach to its paywall. The Sun had been due to follow same paywall model employed by The Times and the News of the World.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will know I think this is the equivalent to shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, seriously, why do it? Why have a paywall that cuts you off from the social media conversation? Read More »

The Washington Post has given the clearest indication yet that it does not plan to launch a paywall any time soon as it unveils a personalised news site called Trove.com that aggregates news across subjects of interest and important headlines of the day.

Relying on a combination of old fashion editorial expertise, social media and a heavy dose of Facebook Connect Trove creates a customised  “news experience” that factors in a reader’s likes and dislikes aggregating from around 10,000 sources. It also promises news advertising opportunities with Ford on-board as the first sponsor. Read More »

We’re only a little way into paywall territory at the New York Times after it went live on March 28, but Hitwise has put out some figures giving an early indication of how the paper is doing with its social media powered metered model.

Hitwise took a look at total visits to NYTimes.com for 12 days before and after paywall launch. There’s absolutely no surprise that there has been an overall decrease, but what’s interesting is this has not been as large as some might have predicted (in visits at least). Read More »