Two years in: Reflections on the New York Times paywall

journalism.co.uk reporting:
Paywalls, in particular the metered model, have been in the news as recently as this week. On Tuesday the Daily Telegraph announced a UK paywall, building on its existing digital subscription model which, since November, had only applied to international web traffic.

Back in November, the Telegraph described its international paywall as operating under a "New York Time's style 'meter'" model. Today marks two years since the New York Times launched its paywall globally. It was not the first to do so, of course. The Times, Sunday Times and Financial Times in the UK and the Wall Street Journal in the US, to name just a few, had all been running online payment models for some time. And more continue to join the line-up, such as the Washington Post which launched its model last week.

Approaches vary from the 'meter' style, which gives a certain level of access before charges apply, to what is often referred to has a 'hard' wall, such as that in place for the Times in the UK, and which does not offer a free article allowance. There are also joint paywalls across news outlets in countries such as Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia, run by Piano Media.

But the arrival of the New York Times in the market of paying for website content was still a significant moment and was accompanied by much commentary - even before the launch. So, two years on, how is the paywall performing compared to the predictions 24 months ago, how does the news outlet feel the paid-content landscape has changed in the past two years and what have been the key lessons learned along the way?

To find out, we spoke to Paul Smurl, who until recently was the vice president for paid products at NYTimes.com, and is now general manager for core digital products.
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/two-years-of-the-new-york-times-paywall/s2/a552534/