E-Media Tidbits

PaidContent.org alerted me to a story about the website of the Boston Herald and its plan to begin charging for articles by its columnists. Here's the deal: The website will remain mostly free, but it's putting its toe in the paid-content waters by placing newspaper columnists' work behind a paid wall. The price is $4.95 per month (or $9.95 for three months) for each columnist, according to an explanation of the scheme by columnist Cosmo Macero Jr. (This coincides with introduction of a paid digital-replica edition of the Herald using NewsStand. NewsStand subscribers to the Herald will get the columnists as part of the price. Also, print Herald subscribers will get columnists' Web writings free, too.)

Now, overall I like the model of mostly-free-with-some-paid-content for newspaper sites, especially when print subscribers get everything online free so that the focus is on getting money from non-subscribers. But here's my prediction: At $4.95 per month per columnist, website managers will soon discover that the price is too high to generate more than a blip of business and will have to lower it significantly. (I just checked the bill for my local daily newspaper and found that I pay $6.50 a month -- for print delivery of the entire product. Isn't $4.95 a month for a digital version of a single columnist a bit -- nay, way -- out of whack?)