More US papers mull charging readers for online content

Christian Science Monitor: More US papers mull charging readers for online content

GlobalPost and the Fayetteville Observer are reportedly close to rolling out pay software called Press+.

Yesterday, The New York Times had a piece on a handful of papers that plan to retreat – or have already retreated – behind a pay-wall. (The Times recently announced it will eventually roll out a metered system of its own.) The focus of the article is software called Press+, which was invented by longtime industry insiders Steven Brill and L. Gordon Crovitz.

For a price, Brill and Crovitz will come to your outlet, and set up Press+, which takes all of your content – or a goodly chunk of it – and makes people fork over cash to see it. A hugely controversial idea, obviously, even at a time when the newspaper business is struggling to stay afloat. The major argument against pay-walls is simple: Internet-savvy people will just go elsewhere to find the treasure you're ransoming inside your digital fortress. …

… Then there's Newsday, the long-ailing – and once formidable – Long Island newspaper. As John Koblin of The New York Observer wrote back in January, Newsday's pay system hasn't exactly opened up the paper's audience. Now before we reveal the exact number of people who have signed up to read Newsday online, we should say that the figure does not include subscribers to the dead tree edition of Newsday, who automatically get access to the stuff behind the paywall.

Ready? OK. The number is…. 35 people. But hey, maybe everyone is being too dismissive.

What do you think? Will this strategy work?