Online news readers may find emergency money dwindling

Paying for news stories

It's critical to have emergency money in today's market, but the New York Times isn't making it easy. Many avid readers of the New York Times Online are going to be in for a big surprise next year. Mark Zandi, economist for Moody's Economy.com, said, "The internet is free and more and more people are getting their information directly from it. Gone a! re the days of paying for a newspaper, except for older generations who don't have unlimited access to the online news world, or don't want it."

The New York Times has long been one of those free news websites, but that is soon to change. Starting next year, the paper is going to be implementing a "metered" system where readers will receive a certain number of news stories for free, but if they want more detailed information they will have to pay. The plan is to draw readers in with interesting articles and then show them the value of learning more about the article's topic.

Will the plan work?

The big question is whether or not the pay-to-click option will work for The New York Times. They have tried twice before to move to this type of format unsuccessfully. Because of the two failures, executives are taking their time and giving themselves almost a full year to "build the system and figure out the details that are likely to dictate whether the gamble pays off." The biggest issues are to gauge how much to charge and still keep readers and how many stories consumers will be allowed free access to every month. … click here to read the rest of the article titled “Online news readers may find emergency money dwindling“