LWN status update [LWN.net]

LWN status update

Posted Jul 30, 2002 20:33 UTC (Tue) by Steve_Baker (subscriber, #265)
Parent article: LWN status update

A suggestion for non-subscriber content would be to offer a monthly preview as it were, where one week out of the month, non-subscribers are given access to the same content that subscribers are (and at the same time.) The rest of the time they are given greatly diminished content, stuff they could likely find anywhere, i.e. most of the daily news. Include important security news in there though, because that's just a good public service. This lets non-subscribers see what they're missing 3 weeks out of the month and doesn't let subscribers feel like they're not getting anything for their money.

I also think that comment posting should be limited to subscribers, if only to keep the troll quotient to a bare minimum. Or perhaps just make posting an extra service that costs a couple bucks a year or something, which subscribers automatically get.

Lastly, if you do manage to make this work and subscriptions work out, I'd just like to put in my vote now for a return of the desktop section as well as perhaps some more commentary and op-eds in general.

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LWN status update

Posted Jul 30, 2002 21:11 UTC (Tue) by seanpecor (guest, #2983) [Link]

Some of my (more clarified) opinions:

1. The daily updates home page is a valuable marketing tool in that it gets people bookmarking the site, and coming back daily. It should remain free.

2. The weekly newsletter should be made available to subscribers only, for a period of at least one month. One day or one week isn't a sufficient amount of time to convince those "sitting on the fence" to commit to a subscription. And I believe it is those fence sitters that will make or break your business model.

3. Temporary subscriptions should be made available to those willing to complete a 1-2 page demographic survey form. After this modest amount of effort a non-paying subscriber can gain access to the current newsletter. However, this survey form would be required for each subsequent edition, until the person pays for a subscription. When the advertisers shine on LWN in the future, this data will help establish your site demographic.

4. Paying subscribers should be able to pay a little extra for a modest print edition (something simple on hard stock with 3-6 pages) mailed to them. Busy workers (like me) read magazines at breakfast and lunch time (or on the head - grin), and the web site is innacessible. Printing one's own copy is inconvenient. This is not something that has to be fancy, and would increase dependence on LWN for the latest news thats worth reading.