NotTV: LA Times to follow...

[Bob in Jersey]

...several other papers, including its NY namesake, into paywall-land
next month:

http://goo.gl/yFSIw



--
BOB

[Wesley McGee]

The question that remains:  How porous will this paywall be?

Obviously, it won't be hermetically sealed as they will allow you to read a certain number of articles each month of your own choosing (as opposed to the WSJ, where they determine which articles are open to the public, and all others are paywalled). Will it be airtight, like the Financial Times (requiring registration to read any articles first, even the free ones), or porous like the NY Times (where deleting the site's cookies will reset the counter)?

[Wesley McGee]

Speaking of paywall reenforcements, the Wall Street Journal is sort of gaming Google's "First Click Free" system so that some first clicks are not free. That said, Google's implementation of it may not be perfect itself.

(First Click Free is supposed to allow people who find a news article through Google search to be able to read it with running into a registration or paywall block. Clicks thereafter then send you to the signup page for that newspaper.)

http://searchengineland.com/wsj-pulls-back-on-what-google-searchers-can-read-for-free-112922

[Joe Hass]

I've noticed that articles tend to become "cached" after 24 hours,
which saves you the click.

[PGage]

I was not worried about this at first, since my experience with the NYT has been that the wall is very porous. I am sure I read several articles per day there, and only rarely have I been locked out (partly I guess because I often leave a window open, and it seems as though once I am on the site, it does not count clicking within it to other articles as a separate visit). There are weeks when I click on Nate Silver's column probably 7 - 10 times, and don't get dinged.

But I got locked on the wrong side of the pay wall last week (Ides of March) from the LA TImes in what I guess is the first month. Having grown up in Los Angeles, I do still think of the LAT as my home newspaper, and I guess it is a main go-to, not to mention I am a passionate Laker fan, and read their sports page a lot. But I thought the other small tricks I had used with the NYT would work.

In principle I am not against daily papers finding a way to monetize their internet presence - in fact I am in favor of it. I think the idea that some how the free information that frolicks on the internet has made professional journalism obsolete is absurd. Professional journalism provides real value, and we should be willing to pay for it. In practice of course, this is mildly irritating.

What I would like is to pay something like $10/month and get unlimited access to some bundle of newspapers, but I guess that would not generate enough revenue.

[calwatch]

There is no lock on the mobile version of the site - m.latimes.com.

[PGage]

On Wed, Mar 21, 2012 at 6:32 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Bob in Jersey <bob.in...@juno.com> wrote:

...several other papers, including its NY namesake, into paywall-land
next month:

http://goo.gl/yFSIw

I was not worried about this at first, since my experience with the NYT has been that the wall is very porous. I am sure I read several articles per day there, and only rarely have I been locked out (partly I guess because I often leave a window open, and it seems as though once I am on the site, it does not count clicking within it to other articles as a separate visit). There are weeks when I click on Nate Silver's column probably 7 - 10 times, and don't get dinged. (SNP)

And now I notice (maybe it has been there a long time) a warning on the NYT that "Beginning in April, visitors to NYTimes.com will have access to 10 free articles per month instead of 20."

99 cents for first month as a trial subscription gets you past the paywall, but then $15.00/month.