Pro vs. con in WSJ.com debate

Mark Glaser of the PBS MediaShift web site has a list of five reasons why The Wall Street Journal should make its web site free to all users, and five reasons why it should remain a pay site.

Here is one of the reasons to make it free:

Business portal dreams. Murdoch has designs on creating the business news portal, something done already to a certain extent at Yahoo Finance, AOL Finance and MSN Money. But the combination of Dow sites such as WSJ.com, MarketWatch and Barron’s, combined with the upcoming Fox Business News cable channel could create a new multi-platform powerhouse.

And here is one of the reasons to keep it a pay site:

Keep WSJ.com differentiated from MarketWatch. Dow Jones already has a free ad-supported business site in MarketWatch, so why would it want another free site to compete with it? There’s a good chance that MarketWatch is already driving subscriptions for the Journal and WSJ.com, so you lose that promotional synergy by making WSJ.com free.

Glaser’s conclusion? He writes, “I think Murdoch needs to think long and hard about how he goes about changing the Journal and its subscription model. Adding more reporters and international coverage? Great. Downplaying print for online? Excellent. Creating a dominant business news portal? Fine. Opening the pay wall? Tough call. There are good points on both sides of this issue.”

Read more here.