From MINNPOST.COM:
…Now comes word from the Poynter Institute’s Bill Mitchell that Journalism Online’s system has been released into the wild; its first adopter is LancasterOnline, which serves a swath of south-central Pennsylvania.
What will be metered? Obituaries! Insert newspaper-audience-dying-off jokes here.
Metering lets publishers determine how much content is free before users pay. In the case of Lancaster Online, non-locals get seven obit pages before the $1.99 monthly charge kicks in.
Laugh if you want — and I’ll admit, I’m tittering — but any small-town newspaper publisher will tell you obits are a pretty big deal for readers. In this case, LancasterOnline is making money coming and going (if you’ll pardon the pun): they charge survivors to place death notices, and now they’ll charge out-of-towners to read them…
Click here to read the full article.
