Publications lining up with Journalism Online system

Pooh-poohed as it was at the start, Journalism Online, the system for helping newspaper, magazine and online publishers to make money from their content, seems to be catching on. More than 170 daily papers have signed on and more than 500 publications in total have agreed to join, representing more than 90 million unique monthly visitors.

The company was created by several partners, including co-founder Stephen Brill, and allows affiliates to set their own pay models, including sampling, micropayments, the ability to turn pay walls on and off and so on. It says one of its unique attractions is that readers can establish a single account to access multiple publications and platforms (whether they will -- or should -- do that is the crux of critics' complaints about such a system.)

Brill says: "By creating a platform of flexible hybrid models for paid content that maximizes online advertising revenue while creating a new revenue stream from readers, Journalism Online has helped shift the debate over charging for online new from 'if' to 'when and how.'"

Brill added that many publishers have moved past the "abstract debate" and are now working toward some kind of paid content model. The executives of Journalism Online figure that by focusing on 10% on avid readers, on average a Web site would keep 88% of page views and 91% of ad revenue if it put in place a paid-content strategy.

Gordon Crovitz, co-founder of Journalism Online, said that he noticed a change in thinking among content providers over the past several months. "Every publisher we have met with is now seeking to generate revenues for online access, which is a huge shift in strategy," he said in a statement.