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Salon.com Editor Looks Back At Paywalls

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the shooting-yourself-in-the-foot dept.

Techdirt pointed out an interesting retrospective by Scott Rosenberg, former managing editor of Salon.com, about their experiments with paywalls and how repercussions can last a lot longer than some might expect. "More important, by this point the public was, understandably, thoroughly confused about how to get to read Salon content. It took many years for our traffic to begin to grow again. Paywalls are psychological as much as navigational, and it's a lot easier to put them up than to take them down. Once web users get it in their head that your site is 'closed' to them, if you ever change your mind and want them to come back, it's extremely difficult to get that word out."

9 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. salon.com? by bl8n8r · · Score: 4, Funny

    Is that a hairstylist blog or something?

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    boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
    1. Re:salon.com? by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 2, Funny

      I find banging girls in their early 20s helps.
      Well, actually it doesn't help me understand their perspective any better, but it sure is fun!!

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    2. Re:salon.com? by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is even worse than a crotchety old person - it's a crotchety young person who thinks he's a crotchety old person because he's been online for a decade!

  2. Sshhh! by dswensen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Keep it to yourself, will you? If Rupert Murdoch gets wind of this, he might change his mind about cordoning Fox News off from the rest of the Internet!

    Actually, probably not.

  3. Good frikkin lord... by clone53421 · · Score: 3, Funny

    If I have to read another “funny” comment saying “what! salon.com dropped their paywall?”, I think I’m going to scream.

    --
    Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
  4. Re:Did Salon drop their paywall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    You!
    I wanna take you to a pay wall,
    I wanna take you to a pay wall,
    I wanna take you to a pay wall, pay wall, pay wall.

    I've got something to put in you,
    I've got something to put in you,
    I've got something to put in you,
    At the pay wall, pay wall, pay wall.
    Wow!

  5. Try me by fulldecent · · Score: 5, Funny

    let the paywalls go up.

    i'll be the one to write a firefox extension that double underlines all paywall sites. And we all know by now... you don't dare even mouseover double underlined text.

    --

    -- I was raised on the command line, bitch

  6. What? by mutube · · Score: 5, Funny

    There was an article? News to me. I haven't looked at an article for at least a couple of years.

    --
    Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
  7. Re:Did Salon drop their paywall? by jc42 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Salon is streaming lesbians

    Wait, what?! I'll check as soon as I get off work...

    Nah; don't bother; they're not naked. They're covered with this stuff that's sorta like a RL version of a paywall; they call it "clothes" or something like that.

    --
    Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.