Fast Company/Inc. tighten paywalls

Fast Company and Inc. are tightening their paywalls, making four daily stories reserved for paying subscribers, reports Sara Guaglione of Digiday.

Guaglione reports, “Part of the reason for doing this is to create more value for subscribers, but the paywall changes are also part of a larger strategy shift to grow consumer revenue at Mansueto Ventures, in light of referral traffic challenges.

“‘The real reason for it … is that traffic is really fickle, and we have to find more ways to build a direct connection with our audiences [and] have that kind of stability that comes from having the subscription business,’ said Stephanie Mehta, CEO of Mansueto Ventures, who spoke at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colorado, on Monday.

“Inc. in particular has been ‘very dependent’ on Google Discover traffic, which hasn’t been reliable in the last six months or so, Mehta said. She didn’t share how many subscribers both publications have.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.