Published September 30, 2010
We have all been waiting to see how the Boston Globe would charge for content on the Web. This just in:
The Boston Globe next year will split its digital news brands into two distinct websites, keeping Boston.com free while establishing a subscription-only pay site, BostonGlobe.com, which will feature all the content produced by the newspaper’s journalists, publisher Christopher M. Mayer said today.
The bifurcated paywall will launch in the second half of 2011.
Boston.com is one of the most valuable brands in the country.
This announcement comes the day after the departure of the website’s chief editor. Whether he saw this coming or not, David Beard was instrumental in making the Boston.com brand stand out from that of the Boston Globe.
With two strong brands in its arsenal, the NYT-owned Globe will continue building the enormous traffic and advertising revenue of Boston.com — and charge users for a premium, newspaper-like reading experience for the journalism:
BostonGlobe.com, designed to closely approximate the experience of reading the paper’s print version, will contain all the stories and other content from the day’s paper as well as exclusive reports, in-depth news, analysis, commentary, photos and graphics, plus video and interactive features.
The (paid) Globe Reader app is a start but falls short. As Dan Kennedy noted, the Reader does a poor job showcasing multimedia.
By focusing on the journalism at BostonGlobe.com — and leaving the slideshows, weather, travel news, events calendars and clutter to Boston.com — I imagine a website something like new Twitter. Focused, high design, multimedia-rich.
There are no pricing details yet.
As @agwieckowski notes on Twitter: “The NYT is next.” Another NYT property, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, erected a partial paywall in August.