Just rolled into my in-box: the New York Times has ditched its paid-access TimesSelect system after two-and-a-bit years. TimesSelect was a payment walled dropped in front of its archive news and columnist content - much to the frustration of many of its readers. The system defied the trend in the industry, which is to opt for as big an audience as possible and support that with advertising. I guess that strategy has been proven.
From the release: NYTimes has gone for a sponsor instead, so American Express will support the premium content pages from 19 September. It says that since TimesSelect launched, users have become increasingly reliant on search to navigate the web (read: NYTimes was losing traffic share because its content was blocked to non-subscribers...). It seems the 787,400 subscribers weren't enough to offset the loss in traffic.
"TimesSelect brought new commentary and voices to the site, as well as an influx of subscription revenue," said Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager, NYTimes.com. "But the increasing dominance of search and other forms of referral have changed the equation. Allowing unfettered, free access to our opinion content and recent archives should enable us to drive readership and advertising."
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