As 2011 winds down, paywalls seem to be going up. The Chicago Sun-Times in the US and Scotish papers the Herald and the Sunday Herald have decided to go the NYT way. The new year will certainly see more such attempts. I reckon Indian newspapers might be keenly observing how paywalls pan out of lesser publications than the NYT.
There is always the temptation to squeeze more money out of the print product by shoveling it online. Even attempts at repurposing news for the new medium might justify putting up paywalls.
The year ahead might also see the emergence of mobile versions of the site attracting more audience than primary websites. There’s scope there to make people pay for content.
Sources:
Herald titles to charge online readers
Sun-Times to start paywall on news web sites
