An LWN status update

An LWN status update

It's difficult to understand why such a good sources of information like LWN has only 3100 paid users (although this is probably one of the biggest user base for Linux-related web sites). For me, and I'm sure I'm not talking only for myself, this is _the_ source for information related to Linux and open source. Countlessy times I've found the article I was looking for... Part of my job is Linux teaching (for technical people), and I always cite your site as the site they should start read if they want to be among the best in their field.

So it's not a product problem, it's related to the way you made this product accessible. Some ideas below, lots of IMHO's suppressed for clarity :)

1-week lockout it's not the best approach, as a lot of people can wait seven days, whilst you cannot reach a wider audience by giving away some on-the-news articles; you should evaluate if increasing the lockout period to 2-4 weeks and made some hot article immediately available could attract more casual user at first, and eventually made them into paid users.

There are some excellent series of article on LWN, like the Grumpy Editor Guide, cannot you revamp them (if needed) and use to attract more visitors? You could possibly end slashdotted :)

Also, I imagine that in the corporate world you can go to your boss and ask for a 200 $/year subscription more easily than for a 54 $/year one, because "if it's so cheap cannot be so good". Such corporate-subscriber could also receive a PDF version of the newsletter via e-mail, so they can show their boss there's something real in exchange.

Last point: in Latin there's a statement like "nomen omen" which could be translated in "a name defines everything" (yes, ancient Latin was one of the most compacted languages ever): Lwn is a lot more than a newsletter, and from the opening page this should be clear. Keep the name, add a slogan :)