[Mb-civic] Starting Next Monday NYTimes Readers Charged $50 per Year for Op-Eds Online

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Starting Next Monday NYTimes Readers Charged $50 per Year for Op-Eds Online



http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content
_id=1001097356


NEW YORK Come Monday, Sept. 19, fans of New York Times columnists Maureen
Dowd, Paul Krugman, and David Brooks will have to break out their credit
cards. Sept. 19 is the launch date of TimesSelect, a new subscription
service designed to diversify the newspaper's revenue stream beyond
traditional Web site advertising.

The popular Op-Ed columnists are the main selling point behind the $49.95 a
year subscription. (The service will be free for the paper's home delivery
subscribers). The paper's news, features, editorials, and analysis will
remain free, as will interactive graphics, multimedia, and video.

TimesSelect subscribers will also have the ability to access up to 100
articles a month from the Times's 25-year digital archive. To sweeten the
pot even further, the Times is offering a number of new services, including
the ability to save and organize articles in a personal "Times File," an
e-mail alert service, and early access to certain Sunday sections.

In an editor's letter posted Monday, NYTimes.com Editor Len Apcar called
TimesSelect "an important step in the development of The New York Times."

But the move is not without its risks. The Times is likely to see a drop-off
in page views, which advertisers covet, at least initially. But if
successful, the move could embolden other publishers to begin experimenting
with limited online subscription models.

An overview of TimesSelect offerings is available here.

Early response in the blogosphere was not positive. One popular blogger,
John Aravosis at Americablog, predicted what many fans of Times' columnist
might do: "People will still get copies of the articles, they'll still email
them around the Net, some Web sites will still republish the entire articles
illegally, and we'll end up linking to those sites instead of the New York
Times (it ain't illegal to link)."

He added, commenting on "free" falling: "If the Times' idea catches on, this
really could be the beginning of the end of the current state of Internet
news."



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