An LWN status update

An LWN status update

I find LWN to be by far the most useful Linux news resource available; when my subscription came up for renewal a couple of weeks ago there was no doubt in my mind that I should renew it immediately (and I did). Pretty much every week I'm hanging out for the minute the weekly issue comes out so I can read it. In contrast I stopped subscribing to other Linux news sources because I was finding I wasn't even reading all of them, and often they sat around for weeks waiting to get around to reading some of them.

So I think you've got the right sort of content -- well written, topical, informative -- to be quite successful. The issue then comes down to selling/marketing that to people so they at least know they can subscribe, and the benefit of doing so.

I'm ambivilent about the idea of a two-week lock on articles; I think being able to point people at articles is one of the best forms of advertising, and it's often rather less relevant two weeks later. Maybe the "a subscriber sent you access to this one article" approach might be a viable compromise.

It is possibly worth considering whether LWN subscriptions can be sold in a more traditional subscription fashion. Perhaps with an emailed copy sent out (PDF; or maybe a URL) to subscribers who want one, when the weekly edition is published. And/or trying to "partner" with various Linux distributors to sell LWN subscriptions (I'm thinking the likes of EverythingLinux.com.au at least as much as I'm thinking of RedHat/Novell/etc).

Anyway I continue to hope you find a way to make it work in a sustainable fashion.

Ewen

PS: Fixing the cookie issue would be nice too. An updated cookie if, eg, the cookie has less than a week left, and subscriber has more time left than that, would be fine.