After much talk and speculation today is the day when the New York Times paywall finally goes live – well, that is unless you live in Canada where you were lucky enough to see it implemented last week.  The trend towards paywalls is a one that has been a bit of hot topic in the industry for most of last year and now, with the NYT taking the plunge, it is worth exploring some of the comments out there on the issue.

Maybe the first voice to consider is that Martin Nisenholtz, NYT Digital Czar, speaking with Peter Kafka of MediaMemo.  Nisenholtz implies he isn’t expecting the majority of readers to become paying readers, just the plan is to convert a minority of heavy users into subscribers, with the intention of remaining a “very very large player” on the Web.  With ad revenues on the increase, in the UK at least, then perhaps the NYT are attempting to find a “third way” between paywall and free access?

Two other articles that really caught our eyes are these from Fast Company and Harvard Business Review, both looking a bit deeper at paywalls and the potential thought processes behind them for consumers.  With Web, iPad, and Web plus iPad options now available, not to mention the 20 free articles each month, who knew paywalls could be so cognitively taxing?!

Finally, paidContent have put together this handy comparison chart of how the biggest US newspaper paywalls match up:

What are your views on paywalls?  Will you, or do you, subscribe to any? Let us know below.

Outsell picks up on the recent Nielsen blog post Changing Model: A Global Perspective on Paying for Online Content, which investigates whether consumers will be willing to pay for online news content. This study matches previous findings from Forrester and Outsell’s own research, essentially that when it comes to media content consumers seem less willing to pay for news than other types of media.

Such findings lead Outsell to conclude that consumers have been conditioned to spend on particular content at particular price points, and that household budgets are pretty fixed. Would you be prepared to cancel that ESPN TV subscription to pay for access to your local newspaper online? So rather than expecting a change in business models to be the next big thing, Outsell suggests publishers place more focus on “serious product design, user engagement, and the things that delight and differentiate”.

Certainly food for thought, as the recession eases and ad spending looks to be slowly bouncing back will the trend toward paywalls lose some momentum?

(image credit skpy)

It seems a week can’t go by at the moment without the debate around newspaper paywalls generating more column inches. ReadWriteWeb picked up on an interesting story concerning Newsday and the apparent lack of success seen by its recent subscription revenue model. Having spent $4 million on redesigning the site anticipating the introduction of a paywall but the subsequent return of only 35 subscribers in a three-month period doesn’t look good. However, by digging a little deeper the figures aren’t quite so clear-cut, as subscribers to the local cable company also enjoy free access to the Newsday site, so it is probably unfair to draw too many conclusions on this example alone. The Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger also spoke out on paywalls this week, paidContent gives an excellent write-up on the speech here.

As we mentioned previously the much vaunted Apple iPad was announced this week and the potential for media does look attractive. The sharp, display, ability to embed videos into articles and the New York Times app already being demoed it looks like an exciting mix of the more traditional paper form and the digital future, although whether the device takes off and publishers create the dynamic content necessary remains to be seen.