Pay for pageviews: Or don't scare off the unique visitor
Here's an interesting idea.
Monetize the audience, not the content.
At first I thought that meant ask wealthy people to pay more.. yeah, right. But no, it's more the corner drug dealer model. (No offense to anyone. Drug dealer or newspaper publisher.) Instead of making users pay up front for content, give them a taste of your news, let them read several stories and then, when they come back for more, ask for cash.
That keeps your content in the searchable world.
It keeps you from turning off the unique visitors, which are really the only way to grow these days.
But there is one problem.
This puts those age-old demands back on an ever-shrinking newsroom.
Editors and reporters: You have to tell good stories and preferably ones that people can't really get anywhere else. Go local. Go smart. Make readers want to come back.
Late-add: The New York Times describes online membership plans.
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