LWN: Comments on "LWN status update"

LWN status update

DeletedUser399 — 2002-07-31T21:44:52+00:00

I would like to suggest several things:

1.) First, to me, the most valuable part of LWN is actually the daily edition. I really like the weekly edition, but the daily edition is one of my stops *everyday*. So, first off, why not do like Slashdot, and place larger (more appealing to advertisers) ads on the Daily Edition pages, and then offer a way to buy ad-free page views. This is something I would be really interested in.

2.) Delayed Weekly Edition, as others suggested, delaying public consumption of the daily edition is a good idea, especially if you give the headlines but no links or content - just to entice people. I think a one week delay would be good - the old issue becomes publically available one the new one comes out.

3.) Create an e-mail version of the Weekly Edition for subscribers (if they want it) that has the full content of the Weekly Edition in a nice big e-mail.

4.) What about a downloadable archive of all previous weekly editions, nicely formatted to fit into the KHelpCenter or GNOME 2's Yelp? That'd be nice.

5.) Adopt-A-Page: You know when you are listening to the radio, and they say "Now this from the Bob's Roofing Traffic-copter One" or "And now a look at sports at the Fred's Fine Dining Sports Desk?" Yeah, it all may seem stupid to a point, but what about allowing people and companies to adopt a page? For instance in the free version of LWN Weekly Edition, you could have "The IBM Front Page" or the "RedHat Security Page"...

-Tim

Suggestion on helping people to subscribe

addw — 2002-07-31T20:57:01+00:00

I posted something like this a few days ago - but it seems to have evaporated.

Looking at your 'donate' page, there are ways in which it can be improved to help some people give you money. Those that I am thinking of are people who could claim it back from their company (or as a tax legitimate expense) if the wording was slightly different. Maybe you want 2 pages, let people choose which one they want to use.

Changes:
* remove the word 'donation' it won't go down well on an expense sheet, 'subscription' would be better.
* Allow people the option of requesting an 'invoice' to be sent to them following receipt of payment, if you can get their/company name in so much the better - a PDF file would often be acceptable.
* How much: the equivalent of a tank of petrol will get past any accountant, in the UK that is about £32 (=~ $50).
* Offer a box that they can tick to have a reminder mailed to them in 1 year - you don't want to go through all of this again do you ?
* Some people don't like sending credit card details over the Internet but are happy to fax things - allow this as an option - maybe a small file they download, fill in & fax.

The above will not be useful to everyone, but to some people.

Help people to help you.

Limit the weekly edition

groler — 2002-07-31T20:38:08+00:00

lwn.net has been my HOME page, repeat, HOME page of my browser. I have
run Slackware on my server since '97. The new format is terrible. My
monitor is set to 640x480 and I cannot even read the comments of this
thread. Also, I have to scroll to the right to read the stories. Why
are the stories not centered???
I have run my web site as a total loss (no ads) since '97. The idea of
making money with a web site is strange to me (maybe I'm strange?).
Just my 2 cents.

Limit the weekly edition - I'll second that

a9db0 — 2002-07-31T18:38:33+00:00

Limit the weekly edition for a week. The readers who value your work will subscribe, those who don't can wait.

Remember: Content is the most valuable thing you have. Distribute it wisely.

Dave

do a subscription model

DeletedUser3012 — 2002-07-31T16:50:11+00:00

I prefer the subscription model. I'll be able to use my company credit card to buy a subscription, but I can't donate with it. While I can't afford anything out of my personal pocket, my company pocket can afford it. Besides, they're the ones benefitting from my Linux knowledge, they should be the ones to pay.

Whether things get delayed or restricted based on who subscribes doesn't matter to me. It's all about the semantics and what I can get past the accountants.

LWN status update

pm101 — 2002-07-31T16:43:54+00:00

Howdy. I'm a graduate student. I donated 30 bucks (in the form of an ad
campaign asking people to donate more money). I've read LWN since it
started. First, I'd like to echo the sentiments of other people who posted:
I'll gladly pay any reasonable subscription fees. At this point, LWN is the
only publication I read on a regular basis. It has a lot of value to me. I
have yet to find a publication in any field with the level of intelligence,
accuracy and integrity LWN has consistently shown over the years. I think
a substantial portion of the readers would be willing to pay the fees as
well.

That said, you need to be careful. First of all, communities rotate. The
community is very willing to pay, but what you may find is that if you
close off the site too much, you will stop getting new readers. Old
readers will slowly drop off, until the site dies. Second of all, a large
value of LWN comes from it being free; I don't want to have to log in from
every machine I visit to access it; I don't want to give anyone the ability
to track what I read and when I read it; I want to be able to forward
links to articles to friends. Again, you can't close too much off.

At the same time, you need enough of a value-add that sysadmins can write
of paying subscription fees as a business expense. At that point, if
someone's job is paying, you can charge very reasonable (read: high)
subscription prices. I might make something where you have three levels
of subscriptions: Student ($30), Personal ($60),Business ($120+) and
Departmental ($500+ for an everyone in an IS department, with price
varying for size of department). You don't actually need to verify this
too much; I doubt the type of people who will want to subscribe will want
to cheat the system.

Finally, you need to figure out whether or not sponsors will be as happy
with a subscription site. A business may be willing to donate to keep
free LWN alive, but not willing to donate for commercial LWN.

A day or two of delay is fine. A crippleware site, on the other hand,
would mean marginally higher short-term profits, but long-term death.
Of course, I've watched you guys for many years, and I have complete
confidence that you will do the right thing. The folks at LWN have an
overdeveloped level of ethics and intelligence, and I have no doubt in my
mind you won't do anything stupid (like many of the things suggested).

If you ever do go under, please maintain a skeleton LWN; a much shorter
version that you can do in your free time. That way, the site won't die,
and if the economy ever pops back up, you can return to full-fledged
operation. Ideally, you'd do consulting half-time and LWN half-time (the
exposure of LWN would bring in a decent amount of work), but even working
full time, and posting a brief site over the weekend would at least mean
you'd have the option of reopening the site at a later date.

Three more jobs for your todo list:
* Let subscribes get the thing ("One Big Page"-format) by e-mail, if this
can be implemented quickly
* (Probably #92737 on your TODO list) tie in so I can log in with my
advertising password to post comments. One account instead of multiple.
Several passwords for the same site are a bitch.
* Fix whatever cookies f-age you have. I had a painful time logging in
from Netscape for Linux with full cookies enabled. If what people are
writing is correct, this may be as simple as having www.lwn.net always
refer the user to the same page on lwn.net.

One more point: the site already takes me most of the week to get
through. I find the front and kernel pages invaluable. Skimming
through security to see if anything on my system has a bug is useful.
Distributions, Development, and the old On The Desktop pages were nice,
but a bit long. Linux in the News is way, way too long, but I still
skim it. Linux in Business, Announcements and Letters to the Editor I no
longer bother with. I'm not sure if trying to expand the site is the right
approach. In the end, it means the site takes more labor, and is more
expensive to produce. At the same time, it's already big enough (a bit
too big, actually), and most of the value comes from how well you
summarize everything in Linux news; I know I'd personally find a tighter
summary even more valuable.

Y'all are in a tough situation, but we're with you all the way, for
whatever it's worth.

beware of closing down the content.

pspinler — 2002-07-31T16:19:54+00:00

> If you really consider closing down the content in order to get
> more $$, do the following:
>
> * Big friendly "Doomsmeter" on the front page
> * Site is open for everyone as long as the "doomsmeter remains in
> the good shape.
> * Site is open only for subscribers if the "doomsmeter" is in the
> red zone.
> * When the site is closed for non-subscribers, they discover a
> note explaining what's going on, how much money is missing,
> etc. instead of content.

I like this option a lot. This seems like a really adoptation of the public radio/television pledge model to the net. Please consider something like this.

-- Pat

LWN status update

DeletedUser2560 — 2002-07-31T16:16:59+00:00

I would like to see, if possible, a print edition to go along with the subscription model. I know that it's hard to follow hyperlinks off of print, but printed papers are 1) easier to take with you (the train, car pool, the can), 2) have a better way to generate advertizing income, and 3) can give subscribers more of a preceived "value" for their dollar.

fund pool and open books instead of subscription model

jbelmonte — 2002-07-31T16:10:22+00:00

Please give up your plans for a subscription model, for dividing readers into "subscribers" and "non-subscribers", and for dividing site content. As much as I enjoy reading the Weekly Edition every week, and despite having donated recently for your past work, and despite a willingness to donate more in the future, I'll refuse to pay a subscription.

Just decide your monthly rate, require two month's payment upfront (or whatever heads-up-it's-time-to-find-a-new-job window you feel comfortable with), and let readers donate as they please. Make a real-time donation status available. If donations, combined with ad income, should fall behing target, then shut down-- it means either people have a "let the other guy pay" mindset, or the price you're asking was too high.

Hold out long enough for the free sites to crater

Dre — 2002-07-31T14:48:57+00:00

I have been reading LWN for 4yrs and have found your content to be of excellent quality.

I would say that paying for great articles & topics would be a good thing.

Just like any good magazine or publication it has to be funded by someone.

So a charged rate based on the reader's domain might be a fair way of keeping LWN going...

How did the likes of the AOL's etc, make themselves profitable before they became massive. They had to charge their customers.

We can't have something of quality for nothing, neither can the corps.

So start charging & try and get some sponsorship.

Good luck in your efforts. :-)

Cookies

Baylink — 2002-07-31T13:58:09+00:00

Most curious.

I had *always* gone to www.lwn.net, until I found out that I couldn't reliably log in from there.

What it had looked like to me was that the cookies were for lwn.net, not .lwn.net... and my suggestion had been to redirect www. to the base domain. I don't see that that's happened, but I now realize they've probably been to busy to fix it; it's not exactly a class-1 bug.
-- j

Suggestion on pricing

zmower — 2002-07-31T13:09:52+00:00

Yes, the weekly edition should be limited to subscribers. People don't mind paying as long as they perceive they are getting something in exchange. I have a suggestion about pricing; let the reader set his own price. Only make suggestions of the level of subscription. That way you won't exclude that programmer in Bombay who can't afford your set level. Linux is a global phenomenon and it really doesn't make sense to set a global price. It'll also give people the feeling that you're still part of the community. Also give the option to pay by the month/quarter/year. Explain that paying for a year is better because of the interest you earn.

Once you're on an even keel, start thinking about improving the product. The desktop section was a good idea but poorly implemented. Maybe you could appeal for articles on the subject and pay for the ones published.

Chris Moore

Delayed Weekly Edition

and — 2002-07-31T10:21:15+00:00

If you feel uncomfortable in delaying the whole weekly edition for
non-subscribers, delay only some parts. I think of those parts which
require the effort to create them.

Sections that are mostly collected news (like "Distibutions", or
"Linux in the news") or crucial sections (like "Security") should NOT
be delayed for non subscribers, whereas sections containing mostly
original content (like the terrific "Kernel" and the "Frontpage"
sections) SHOULD be delayed for non-subscribers.

LWN status update

eyal — 2002-07-31T10:19:06+00:00

I think that non-subscribers should get delayed access to the weekly addition (by 1-3 days), and delayed access to the running stories, by several hours.

You also have your archives to consider - maybe let subscribers search and download, while non-subscribers will also be able to browse.

One way or another, I'm glad LWN gets another chance.

Eyal.

Limit the weekly edition

pointwood — 2002-07-31T08:26:39+00:00

As have been stated several times, - it costs serious money to make the newsletter. The freedom that you get with free software is free speech not free beer.

I would be more than willing to suscribe to LWN (of course, depending on the price). I don't understand the people that will not pay for this great newsletter. It's probably because people are used to everything on the net to be free. This is not much different from subscribing to a paper edition of any other computer magazine. Just because they write about free software, it doesn't mean the content should be free.

If LWN is able to survive by limiting the weekly edition to subscribers only, then do it!

And please keep the credit card payment option. Some people seem to forget that the internet also exists in the rest of the world. We more or less don't have any other options than to pay with our credit card!

Cookies

jalapeno — 2002-07-31T08:25:00+00:00

The cookies break for me if I go to lwn.net, but they work if I go to www.lwn.net. Maybe it depends on where you were when you got the cookie...

beware of closing down the content.

Deno — 2002-07-31T07:44:59+00:00

There are several big problems with the idea of closing down the content for non-subscribers. It boils down to "you'll loose readers".
I'm sure you can imagine why, so I wan't bother...
It's IMO far better idea to give these folks a few peanuts (mostly "recognition") in addition to what everyone else gets, and leave the main content freely available. Personally, I don't need any aditional peanuts, but do offer them - you'll get more subscribers.

If you really consider closing down the content in order to get more $$, do the following:

* Big friendly "Doomsmeter" on the front page
* Site is open for everyone as long as the "doomsmeter remains in the good shape.
* Site is open only for subscribers if the "doomsmeter" is in the red zone.
* When the site is closed for non-subscribers, they discover a note explaining what's going on, how much money is missing, etc. instead of content.

Ah, one more thing. Look at MandrakeClub pricing model. I'll give you $50-$60/year without thinking, but I wan't give you more than that because I don't consider it worth more, and I don't have too much $$ on my account either. Other people may be in a better mood, or simply have more $$, so give them the oportunity to do so. Also take a look at the original "street performer protocol" article, for more details.

Btw, don't be surprised when some trolls start calling you "beggars" just because you don't demand money, but instead kindly ask for it. I had to endure that kind of (sometimes rather personal) attacks for months, but MandrakeClub contributes 10% to mandrakesoft income today, most of the members seem to be quite satisfied, and these trolls are finally giving up now.

There are people out there who are uncapable of understand the idea of supporting something you do not HAVE to support, and they will bother you from time to time (call you names and such). Leave the possibility to post comments (this is NOT a main feature of LWN, so you can do it without losing readers) to paying customers, and these poor bastards wan't bother you.

Good luck, and please do offer this subscription so that I can join. :-)

yours
Denis Havlik (Deno)

LWN status update

pascal.martin — 2002-07-31T06:37:55+00:00

Why not following the NPR/PBS path ? Let send us a reminder each month, asking for us to contribute with financial support.

I do not think that people will volunteer support without been reminded in a regular fashion. I would actually not be bothered by a call-for-support mailing related to a service I value, especially a non-profit one.

LWN status update

Baylink — 2002-07-31T04:50:35+00:00

<sigh>

I figured this out about 36 hours after the cut, and *told* Jon...

It works if you go to http://lwn.net, and reliably breaks if you go to http://www.lwn.net.

On IE5/W2K, anyway.
--j

Subscription commitment page

cyanide — 2002-07-31T03:50:19+00:00

Hmm... $US10 a month... I'd be happy to part with that amount.

Hold out long enough for the free sites to crater

DeletedUser2971 — 2002-07-31T03:29:27+00:00

If LWN can hold out long enough, in about another 12 to 18 months, a lot of Linux news website competition is going to go away. Consider VA Software. Given their current levels of cash, and their burn rate, they will be gone in about five quarters. When they go down in flames, so does slashdot.org, LinuxGram (overpriced), and NewsForge. Losing NewsForge would be sad, as they create some sane, non-juvenile, original content; but such is life when the market is consolidating.

Think about all the other free Linux news sites. They are either amateur productions run by one person who will soon be overwhelmed or get bored and likely quit; or they are sponsored by corporations that are about to flameout in the last tremors of the dot.bomb bust.

If LWN can just hold out for a while longer, a lot of this free competition is going to disappear. LWN would be left with a substantially larger readership, a sterling reputation in the industry for editorial excellence, more potential subscribers, and a better advertising market.

Hang on guys. If The Register and The Inquirer can do it, so can you. And yes, I'll pony up the cash for subscriptions in the meantime.

Limit the weekly edition

DeletedUser2989 — 2002-07-31T02:55:01+00:00

>> I think you should limit the weekly edition. It provides incentive for people to subscribe.

This very idea of subscription is obnoxious. If LWN Weekly is made a subscriber one, consider another reader as gone.

You can provide VAS without making LWN a paid online newsletter. Publishing a newsletter which reports on *free* software activities is actually built on the *goodness* of the Community which generates all this stuff as Libre!

Making such a newsletter a paid one is doing a disservice for this *freedom* loving Community. I sincerely hope that you would think twice and drop the idea suggested by the above poster.

Thanks any way for the wonderful newsletter that is LWN.

LWN status update

stonedown — 2002-07-31T01:53:28+00:00

I donated $50 and would be willing to subscribe for up to $40 per year.

My several cents worth:

I think you should allow free access to the weekly edition, headlines, the calendar, the Penguin Gallery, and security stuff.

You might consider doing something to make viewing the daily updates just a little annoying for non-subscribers, such as a 5-10 second delay, before allowing them to view the updates page. During those 5-10 seconds, you can make a gentle pitch for subscriptions. Alternatively, you can delay non-subscriber access to the daily updates by some amount, perhaps posting them the next day.

Access to the Archives should be limited to subscribers. If a non-subscriber follows a link to an archived article, they should see something like this:

"You have attempted to access an LWN.net archived article. Although LWN.net offers many free services, archived articles are available for subscribers only. Please subscribe to LWN.net for only $X/year and support high quality news on Linux and open source software. We need your support!"

I think the subscription rate should be about $20-$40/year, in order to make it easy for people to afford. You can add a premium subscription level of somewhere in the range of $50-$80, for "Friends of LWN.net" or something like that. But, I'm not sure what special benefits they might receive. When a person subscribes, they should be encouraged to add a donation to their subscription.

The Linux Stocks page could be available to subscribers only. In the future, you might consider adding monthly interviews or some other special feature, which is only available to subscribers.

Good luck! I hope you are able to come up with a strategy which works well for you. You might want to take a look at MandrakeClub, in case nobody mentioned that yet.

Whatever you do, you need to be more upfront about asking for donations/subscriptions. You have to market yourself better. That's why I bring up MandrakeClub, because those guys seem to understand very well what is required.

Signed,
a MandrakeClub member ;-)

daily updates only for subscribers?

JoeBuck — 2002-07-31T00:23:36+00:00

The daily updates typically have a heavy overlap with LinuxToday, Slashdot, and the Register. The real value of LWN is in its in-depth feature articles. If LWN did what you ask, no one would sign up except those who just want to send LWN money for its own sake. It is the weekly edition that many would find worth paying for; it competes with the monthly print magazines (which many folks are happy to pay for), except that it's more timely.

Sometimes a daily update is a pointer to a feature article, but must of them are just links to things that the regurgitator sites will also publish links to.

Also, I would avoid the concept that the subscriber pays for the right not to see ads. This breaks the very successful print magazine model. A good trade magazine knows its subscriber base and recruits the kind of advertising that its subscribers want to see. The key is that the ads should be done in a way that they serve, rather than annoy, the reader. Maybe the subscriber would be able to select the types of ads he/she wishes to see, but "no ads" would not be one of the choices. An RMS-ite might want to avoid ads for proprietary software but be very interested in hardware, consulting, etc while others might have different preferences.

LWN status update

strombrg — 2002-07-30T23:10:47+00:00

If you guys go subscription, I'll definitely want to talk with my manager about getting the university to spring for a subscription. The info you provide, especially on security issues, is second to none. I only wish you handled unix in addition to linux.

LWN status update

malor — 2002-07-30T23:09:45+00:00

It seems like the 'limit access for awhile' is a good approach. I was originally thinking 'a week', but another poster suggests a month. I think either could work. The nature of your commentary is such that it won't lose much value in a month, so that might be the better choice.

I do think that the 'security updates' page should probably stay free; security is everyone's problem.

Reasonably open and transparent books would be nice, too. This, unfortunately, forces you to reveal staff salaries (at least in aggregate). I don't see any easy way around that. I guess it depends on whether you intend to structure as a nonprofit. If so, then open books strike me as an absolute necessity.

It feels like a subscription system is the smart way to go... one-off donations require that you beg over and over for new money, where a subscription requires only one beg, and can last a long while. I'm not sure why people are so resistant to subscriptions to online sites. We've been doing it for magazines forever, after all; nobody expects Time to give us their product for free, yet for some reason we seem to think that Web content should all be gratis. Yet more damage from the dotcom bubble, I suppose.

At any rate, this is one of the best Linux sites I read. I have been somewhat intermittent over the years, but keep coming back. I'll subscribe as soon as you come up with a system to handle it.

LWN status update

davidm — 2002-07-30T23:08:48+00:00

Limit the weekly to 1 extra week old and restrict the daily to subscribers only. That way if you want the latest breaking news you can get it but you pay for it, older news is free, sort of like ghostscript was, only they were a year old (as I recall).

LWN status update

neilbrown — 2002-07-30T22:58:41+00:00

I think some level of content locking has to be considered if
a subscription model is used, but you have to keep a focus on
the purpose of locking the content. It isn't locked so the
people who don't pay don't get it, but rather so that people
who can pay will.

One idea that I like is to have a subscription target, and
whenever that target is met, the entire site is freely
available.

An extenstion of this is that new features (which imply new
costs) might have a higher target before they become freely
available.

My final thought is that when (maybe I'm being optimistic),
the site becomes over-subscribed, rebates are offered on the
next months subscription rate.

LWN status update

DeletedUser2985 — 2002-07-30T22:23:12+00:00

excuse my poor english.

I read the previous post and a don't understand something like "Limit the weekly edition", ...

I only want that lwn get enough donation to continue.

But a man that give a donation is not stupid. He doesn't want to give some money for something already plenty of money.

lwn need a status page. Something that said :
- enough money for six mouths
- Warning money for only two mounths
- DONATION needed : money for only one mounth !!!

This kind of informations should be controled by an independant organization.

Restrict as little as possible

ber — 2002-07-30T22:09:35+00:00

Please restrict content as little as possible.
(One crasy idea would be to make this dynamic, too).
The less restricting the higher my subscription price or
support ads from my company will be.

Note that restricting access will involve some technical
efforts that might be spend better elsewhere. As a reader
I prefer to get LWN content offroad or at other people's places, too.
Restrictions would make life harder for me.

Make sure that you offer subscriptions in a way that people
can pay more if they want to.
Actively and aggressively encourage people to think about the
value they get out of a free LWN and compare this to more common
media people are used to pay for (newspapers, magazines, cable(?)).

Re: IE?

mjstrom — 2002-07-30T21:57:27+00:00

You are not helping matters. Not every die-hard linux user only uses linux. An example that easily comes to mind is people who read from work and only have IE. Or maybe they just like the browser, shocking as that might be. Or maybe (like I do) have linux and windows and use each where it is appropriate.

Linux needs to be an inclusive community not a take-it-or-leave-it one.

daily updates only for subscribers?

mattdm — 2002-07-30T21:50:23+00:00

I think it'd work better the other way around -- with the weekly edition free for all, and the constant daily stream of updates as a for-pay feature. It's the obsessive LWN-daily-reloaders who are most likely to pay, after all.

Other options?

DeletedUser2981 — 2002-07-30T21:35:19+00:00

One other thing... (as if I wasn't long winded enough already)...

The LWN community has been pretty amazingly willing to pay subscriptions. What about instead of paying subscriptions, the LWN community participated in surveys developed by the LWN consulting arm for high tech corporate customers? Getting a large number of survey respondents can be expensive for customers.

What if LWN conducted online surveys for companies surveying the LWN audience? Would all you folks out there who have enjoyed LWN to date be willing to occasionally answer questions about technical product preferences in order to help the LWN folks support the online community?

The LWN Neilson polls. :)

- Kim again.

LWN status update

seanpecor — 2002-07-30T21:11:21+00:00

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.

Other options?

DeletedUser2981 — 2002-07-30T21:02:26+00:00

I am somewhat worried about the subscription idea - I'm not sure that you can charge enough to get a decent revenue stream.

I think your main assets are:
- your demonstrated ability to build community and the community you've built
- as a result of LWN, you have credibility to talk about Linux and open source
- the fact that you have intelligent stuff to say about Linux and open source as a result of processing mounds of information about it over the last few years

The subscription idea lets you treat LWN like it's the point of your commercial life. It might be the case that you need to find a new commercial focus, but maybe it can be a commercial focus that builds on LWN as one of your key assets. That way you aren't walking away from this great thing that you've built or wasting this great asset. Instead, you get to continue with LWN but get your money elsewhere. It very well may mean you end up having to scale LWN back.

You may have already thought about this or plan on doing this. I think it might be viable to pursue the analyst route. A lot of analysts have publications where they demonstrate their knowledge of a field or industry to the larger community. Although you don't use LWN to pontificate in the same way that the Analysts public reports are used, I do think that LWN gives you credibility. It also means that you have a wealth of insights gained from all the information your have processed and published over the years. You should be able to capitalize on both the insights and your credibility perhaps in the form of custom reports about the technical direction of Linux and the commercial future of open source - to large enterprise IT departments, telecom companies, software development houses, etc. You can also offer to do custom research.

Maybe you might choose to affiliate with one of the analyst houses? I would suggest IDC. Last time I looked Al Gillen was Research Director for Systems Software at IDC, focusing on Linux. He may be an ally. Maybe co-host exec briefing sessions with IBM's WebSphere group? You can do consulting in evaluating whether open sourcing code makes sense in a given commercial context or come up with a tool kit / methodology that you sell for measuring the likelihood that a proprietary software project that runs on Linux violates the GPL.

I'm not sure if this appeals or is a better idea than selling subscriptions. There are other vendors doing this already but LWN gives you a significant competitive asset. It's just my two cents.

Very best of luck to you. I always thought you've done an amazing job with this community.

- Kim Morrison

LWN status update

Manny_Calavera — 2002-07-30T20:59:09+00:00

Locking content and therefore knowledge is not what seems to be fair, especially for people living in poorer regions of the world, who want to take part in our community. I'd just pay about 10 bucks a month for nothing than getting a good news ressource. It's just about having a system that regularly grabs a fixed amount of money from your account. I think there are enough people who would pay this amount.
Some special services could be available, too:
Getting a newsletter with all the todays' headlines every day
There are sure a few others too, just be creative.
As soon as the subscriptions increase more money comes in and you can employ more reporters grabbing even more interesting linux news.
Again, i think you can make money without locking content. You just need a good payment system or many variants (paypal and so on). In Europe many people own accounts at a bank. You could add the possibility to pay automatically and regularly.
It would be nice to have a donation-o-meter which shows how much was donated and earned through paypal & co.
I hope you understand the meaning of this posting. I'm not that good at English, you know.

see you,
- Manny -

Go ahead and restrict access to all articles for a day

dlang — 2002-07-30T20:50:27+00:00

better still, if a non-subscriber hits the site let them see the title of each post, but only show the content to subscribers for the first day (or whatever the delay period is)

LWN status update

crouchet — 2002-07-30T20:48:19+00:00

I find that my LWN login only works if I allow full cookie access. I prefer to only allow cookies back to the originating site but that is no go for LWN. My browser is Netscape, but I would not be surprised if you have a similar problem with IE.

OTOH, If you were to install Netscape (the Windows version looks identical to the Linux version AFAICT) then you also get some cool capabilities, like the ability to stop unrequested pop-up windows. For more info on how to do that, go to http://techaholic.net/ns7.html

LWN status update

Steve_Baker — 2002-07-30T20:33:34+00:00

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.

Subscription commitment page

gedeco — 2002-07-30T20:22:43+00:00

Could it be possible to provide regular payment options instead of credit cards?
Just I'm amazed how some companys treat such info, I'm not going to use a credit card to donate.
In this matter I'm paranoid.
Just an account number and a swift code and a benificiary will do nice.

LWN: Comments on "LWN status update"

LWN status update

Suggestion on helping people to subscribe

Limit the weekly edition

Limit the weekly edition - I'll second that

do a subscription model

LWN status update

beware of closing down the content.

LWN status update

fund pool and open books instead of subscription model

Hold out long enough for the free sites to crater

Cookies

Suggestion on pricing

Delayed Weekly Edition

LWN status update

Limit the weekly edition

Cookies

beware of closing down the content.

LWN status update

LWN status update

Subscription commitment page

Hold out long enough for the free sites to crater

Limit the weekly edition

LWN status update

*daily* updates only for subscribers?

LWN status update

LWN status update

LWN status update

LWN status update

LWN status update

Restrict as little as possible

Re: IE?

*daily* updates only for subscribers?

Other options?

LWN status update

Other options?

LWN status update

Go ahead and restrict access to all articles for a day

LWN status update

LWN status update

Subscription commitment page

daily updates only for subscribers?

daily updates only for subscribers?