Comments on: Why Wall Street Journal Online is Still Subscriber-Only

By: true dough

true dough — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:14:37 +0000

Congoo doesn't seem to be working for me to access WSJ articles anymore. I have access by other means, but Congoo was much more convenient. I hope this is a temporary glitch (I only started having the problem today).

By: Ryan Edwards

Ryan Edwards — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:07:47 +0000

The Wall Street Journal gives you free access if you have a thing called Netpass from: http://www.congoo.com

All premium publishers are working to give these users free access....why...I dont know but i'll take it.

By: Tano

Tano — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:32:41 +0000

Actually, I think the summary is missing the point. All of the major newspapers are wrestling with the problem of how to come up with the best business model for the online world. No one really has much confidence as to what the proper approach is. So we see experimentation.

Some papers, like the NYT, are trying to make it on advertisements, and selling the opinion pages and archive access. Others, like WaPo seem to thihnk that ads alone will work.

The WSJ is a very good newspaper (on the content side), and has decided to charge for that. The editorials are given away for free because that is pretty much what they are worth.

It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. THe danger for the WSJ is that the editorials really do drag down the reputation of the paper and yet the editorials are all that are out there in the free sphere. Those who are aware of the value of the content pages may well find it worth paying for, but the scope for growth may be limited.

The Times, of course, gives away the content - to their great benefit in terms of public influence, but the oped people seem to have been really taken out of a lot of the public discouse.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:31:52 +0000

Rob: Mostly, it was a snarky summation of Cowen's assessment. I would note, though, that OpinionJournal is freely available online.

By: Rob

Rob — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:27:56 +0000

I'm not sure why you'd be so scornful of the WSJ. I've always found the editorial page to be wonderfully insightful. And, it's worth noting that the online version of the WSJ makes more money than its print version. Which is also interesting as the WSJ would seem to be the only traditional newspaper publication that is turning a profit from its online version. Maybe there's something that can be learned from the WSJ...

By: spencer

spencer — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:32:08 +0000

It is not that the WSJ has a few bits that are very valuable to a few people. It has many different bits of information with each of them valuable to a different set of a few people.

By: » OTB News

» OTB News — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

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