OLD Media Moves

Forbes, Economist to be available behind Chicago Tribune paywall

June 28, 2012

Posted by Chris Roush

Jeff John Roberts of PaidContent.org writes about how content from Forbes and The Economist will be made available on the Chicago Tribune website.

Roberts writes, “The Economist and Forbes content is being supplied via NewsCred, a news platform that relies on technology to rapidly curate and license content from over 800 partners. Adee says the Tribune will be able to get the other publishers’ content for rates equivalent to a newswire service and that the paper is in the process of adding another business news partner in coming weeks (it could be Bloomberg — a NewsCred client — but that is just a guess).

“‘If you ask people to pay more than you asked before, they’ll expect more from you,’ explained Adee, adding that the Tribune also plans to make several dozen e-books available to online subscribers. The paper’s own account of the changes is here.

“The Chicago Tribune is among the last major papers in the country to introduce a paywall which has given it times learn from others’ efforts. These include the ‘metered’ strategy (allowing casual readers to see a certain number of articles for free) which is now nearly universal and a decision to make content shared via social media available to everyone. The Tribune is also following the LA Times‘ effort to make online subscribers feel that they are buying a membership to more than just the paper; the latter does so by offering tickets and event discounts to its subscribers.”

Read more here.

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