More on article previews

More on article previews

One distinguishing feature of Internet readers is a very short attention span. I can think of two relevant characterisics: they are uninterested in "one week old" articles, and they typically read several articles a day, but only enough to decide they are bored and to move on.

You might use both of these factors to your advantage by extending the one-week policy by providing immediate teasers of subscriber-only content. For example, look at the lead article in the currently weekly (Finance Managers, part 2). As a teaser, the article title, the intro, a section title, and the section intro show that LWN's original content is valuable and worth a subscription. (A non-clickable table of contents would be helpful too.)

If your value is high-quality content then you can expose the value by giving people a sample up front when it is perceived as fresh and worth a look. When the value has been shown, I think those who appreciate it will subscribe.