Murdoch Suggests He'll Drop WSJ.com Fee

[PaulPA]

Yes the ad-supported web seems here to stay - at least for a while. Story here [nytimes.com]

[ZydoSEO]

Yep. I subscribe to the paper as well as online. Now if I could also get Baron free online... :)

[rogerd]

This is a bold move, since the WSJ is the one subscription-based publication that seems to be very successful.

[rohitj]

at $65+ cpms, they'll eventually make back most of their subscription revenue. they'll also get more loyal readers which means more revenue opportunities in the future.

[koan]

With their kind of content, they'd make a killing with Adsense.

[Rosalind]

But they're currently still selling annual subscriptions, so either they're planning to refund these partially, or this won't be rolled out just yet.

[beren]

Well, I'm

1) Glad, because WSJ has good content that I often like to read

2) Surprised that they held out this long

[maximillianos]

I knew they would come around. I can't tell you how many times I clicked articles to read from email or search only to find I could not access them. It did not sway me to sign up, it just swayed me to find the information somewhere else.

They lost millions of potential repeat visitors over the years, most of whom now have found other sources for their news and won't come back even if/when they open the doors.

[Rugles]

Good.

As a news junkie this makes me happy.

I imagine they had to follow the NY Times in this move.

[CatLady]

So glad to hear this! Hope it's a profitable move for WSJ. They'll have less overhead from managing user subscriptions and the finance sector should give them some decent advertising revenue as well. Sounds like a win-win situation for everyone.

[travelin cat]

Rosalind,
The sale to Murdoch has not yet been completed, so he can not change anything yet. There is still a stockholder vote in December and the sale should close by year end.

[weeks]

WSJ's walls are coming down with the executives in charge kicking and screaming. From E&P:

A top business-side executive at Dow Jones & Co. said it is premature to assume that The Wall Street Journal Web site will definitely drop its paid subscription model, despite comments by Rupert Murdoch that the change is expected.

[editorandpublisher.com...]

[weeks]

OK, a few hours later, this pops up:

The Wall Street Journal Online today announced a new program that will enable its users to submit WSJ.com articles to Digg, the popular news and content sharing website, and allow Digg users to view content currently available to WSJ.com subscribers.

"The Wall Street Journal Online provides in-depth reporting, commentary and analysis on the most important economic and political issues of the day, and Digg users are enthusiastic consumers of news and information,'' said Daniel Bernard, general manager of The Wall Street Journal Online. "We're excited to partner with Digg to offer our users a way to share Journal articles directly from our site, as well as expose new audiences to our content on Digg."

Every article on The Wall Street Journal Online will now include a ``Digg This'' icon in the article tools section that enables users to Digg the article directly from WSJ.com, and view the ``Recently Popular'' and ``Upcoming'' WSJ.com articles as they surface on Digg. In addition, users clicking on a Wall Street Journal article link on Digg will be able to read that article for free on WSJ.com....

I don't explain it, I just report it.

This is what it looks like on Digg.
[digg.com...]

[MediaSpree]

WSJ wants to be next to LOLcats for the future generations to understand them.

[weeks]

WSJ wants to be next to LOLcats for the future generations to understand them.

ROFL! I think you have captured the "power of Digg" perfectly. Excellent analysis.

[Murdoch]

I will do no such thing. :)

[iThink]

I hope other major players in this field will follow the lead.

To start with FT.com should be made free :)

[weeks]

WSJ.com would lose $63 million in revenue by making the website free, according to Reuters. Recovering that in advertising sales would require boosting traffic by 130 percent.
[biz.yahoo.com...]