Why should we be interested in the New York Times' decision to charge for its online content?

I reckon when a major content corporation changes it’s monetisation strategy from free to paid (known as a paywall) it's a harbinger for other sectors.

Here’s what they’ve decided to do.

People with existing subscriptions to the print version will still get free access. Non-subscribers can get online content two ways – a prescribed number of stories for free, full access for a flat fee. They're calling it the “metered model”, coming in January 2011.

Here’s the kicker from their press release:

"We were also guided by the fact that our news and information are being featured in an increasingly broad range of end-user devices and services, and our pricing plans and policies must reflect this vision."

Code for: we are sick of bloggers ripping off our content and our audiences. And making money out of it.

Industry research suggest that readers may be prepared to pay between three and six dollars per month, according to how much they consume.

As discussed previously on MediaWave, if I was in their shoes I would be targeting the heavy users (including bloggers) at the highest price point. Scaring the moderate user away with a paywall could result in loss of traffic and page rankings.

Guess they have a year to think about it. That's a long time in the online content universe.

What this means to you

Putting the NYT announcement together with the news that YouTube is introducing paid downloads, suggests that the early action in 2010 is a move from free to paid content. This could be good news. We’ll keep an eye on this as the year unfolds