Digital Analytics Review: The Times Paywall – Not such a bad idea?
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"Looking at it in purely monetary terms, this is clearly a beneficial move. Mr Murdoch needs to ensure that VaCaR + PVa > VbCbR"
Category Archives: Sunday Times
One Man and His Blog: The Paywalled Times: An Online Private Members’ Club?
Adam Tinworth says lower traffic and no anonymity "opens up the possibility that what News International are actually trying to create is, in essence, a private members' club. There will be a limited number of people joining in on discussion, largely around content. They will be identifiable, and they will have paid an entrance fee to get in there. This is, in fact, a community model, just one that differs from the wide, inter-connected community model we're used to on the open web."
Press Gazette: New Times sites go live – paywall will be all or nothing
"In another radical departure, the sites will only allow subscribers to comment under their real names. Those wishing to comment anonymously will have to make a case to editorial staff for doing so."
BBC: dot.Rory: The Times paywall – an end to sharing
Rory Cellan-Jones: "Go to a site like Twitter and you will see an orgy of self-promotion from journalists tweeting links to their latest stories or blog posts. ... Now all that will stop. Google searches will no longer turn up Times stories, and links posted on social networks will only take you to the papers' sign-in page. News International has opted for the most extreme form of paywall - others let search engines crawl their sites, or offer non-paying visitors a few free articles to entice them in."
paidContent:UK: The Timeses Go Back-To-Basics With Print-Centric New Multimedia Sites
Robert Andrews: "There’s a ballsy desire to map the economics of print-era content publishing on to the new sites, as borne out by refusing to give even excerpts to search engines or users originating from them. Whether you think that’s backward, as some web industry folk will claim, or a necessary reassertion of value in order to save its journalism from pennilessness, as the Timeses say; that’s up to you."
FT.com Tech Blog: Behind the Times’ new paywall
“'It looks a lot like a newspaper, which I don’t think we’re apologising for,' said Tom Whitwell, assistant editor of the Times. 'The article pages we think are simple and clean, and easy to read.' ... Danny Finkelstein, comment editor of the Times, ... insisted this barrier would not prevent him from sharing links to his articles on Twitter or cut the newspaper out of a wider online conversation. ... The Times’ content will remain tightly locked up with not even a first paragraph to tease in new customers."
paidContent:UK: UK Times’ Paid Sites Will Turn Search Engines Away From Stories
"The Times and Sunday Times’ upcoming paid sites will not allow their articles to appear in search engines like Google ... the sites will only show their homepages, not articles, to search engines."
Times Online: Articles of Faith’ translates to heart of great paywall debate
Ruth Gledhill: "the blogs at thetimes.co.uk, as our new website will be addressed when we are separated from our Sunday Times stablemate, will be moving away from Typepad to a new platform. They might not, it seems, go behind the paywall immediately, but definitely will in due course."
Media Week: Guardian editor forecasts ‘vault of darkness’ for The Times
Rusbridger on the Times' potential revenues from 60-100K paying readers: "That's two or three weeks' revenue in terms of cover price. That's useful revenue, I can see why people are trying it, but it's not a game changer. It will be interesting if it succeeds but we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is going to be the panacea."
Press Gazette: Witherow: Paywall needed for Times £100m ed costs
"The Times revealed a first look at its new-look website, which borrows heavily from the design elements of the print edition."
Roy Greenslade: Witherow versus Rusbridger over paywalls
"If 100,000 people agreed to pay £2 a week for access to the [Times] papers, it would result in annual revenue of £10m. It's a sobering thought that the sum is but a tenth of the papers' editorial budget and less than an eighth of their current joint annual losses."
Times Online: Hold the front page, I want to be on it
"1,200 people ... applied in September for one reporter’s position on the new Sunday Times website."
Independent: Will Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for access to his websites pay off?
"The big reveal comes next week. We'll have a better idea then whether the redesigned Times website and new Sunday Times online offering will be worth signing up for at £2 per week, or £1 for a single day's access."
Independent: Will Rupert Murdoch’s plans to charge for access to his websites pay off?
"The big reveal comes next week. We'll have a better idea then whether the redesigned Times website and new Sunday Times online offering will be worth signing up for at £2 per week, or £1 for a single day's access."