The New York Post reported yesterday that The New York Times is giving up on its paid content model known as TimesSelect. Started two years ago, The NYTimes discovered that their editorial pages of Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, and others were consistently making the top ten list of most read and forwarded articles. In an effort to create another revenue stream, the biz dev department of NYTimes thought it would be a great idea to stick these great opinion writers, who were consistently bringing in the most traffic, behind a paid walled garden.
Listen to the Spark Minute (John Scott and David Spark from Green 960 in San Francisco, CA). Trying to answer the question, “Is there any way to make money from text-based content?” (Run time: 7:37).
