Out from behind the pay wall

A chink in the pay wall at the Globe and Mail? The launch today of globesports.com means that the likes of Stephen Brunt, Eric Duhatschek, Dave Shoalts, indeed all of the Globe sports columnists, are henceforth available free, to subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Even the Globe trumpeted on its sports front that they were "coming out from behind the pay wall".

Previously a fee had to be paid for a premium service to read columnists and other valuable features. This is not unlike the New York Times model. But by breaching this for sports, is the Globe admitting that the insider.com model isn't working as they had hoped? Last we heard, only about 11,000 people had paid the fee. Presumably, when popular sports columnists are removed from the mix fewer, rather than more, readers will want to pay the premium. Can the other Globe columnists be far behind?

This is an interesting question not only for newspaper watchers, but also for publishers of magazines who are struggling to "monetize" their websites. If people routinely resist paying memberships or premium prices for the most valuable, or any, content, then they are faced with giving it away for free. Which means that advertising and sponsorship is the sole source of income and site traffic becomes hugely important.