Those Murdoch paywalls are going up all around the world. A News Corp title in Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Times, is now charging for access to its CapeCodOnline.com site.
It follows in the footsteps of its sister paper, the Standard-Times of New Bedford, which made the same move last January.
Rupert Murdoch's company acquired both papers when it bought Dow Jones in 2007 to win control of its crown jewel, the Wall Street Journal.
Ted Nesi explains what he calls the byzantine pricing structure here. It involves some free access, but he tells how one reader was upset by using up one of his 10 free monthly views on a story that turned out to be only two sentences long.
He writes: "That actually points to one of the problems that paywalls cause for publishers – it forces readers to think hard every time they click on a story. ("Do I want to waste one of my allotted views on this?") The paywall gets in the way of the story, and creates anxiety for the reader."
Source: WPRI.com
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