Paper puts up a paywall for comments

Posted: Tuesday, 13 July 2010 - 9:45pm Bookmark and Share

From tomorrow, the Sun Chronicle, a Massachusetts paper, will charge would-be commenters a nominal one-off fee of 99 cents. But it has to be paid by credit card, which means providing a real name and address.

And the name on the credit card will be the name that will appear on comments. So it's goodbye to anonymity.

At the same time, the poster must acknowledge that he/she will abide by US state and federal law and agree to be legally responsible for any content he/she posts.

More ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/jul/13/paywalls-us-press...

Comments

Richard Stephenson's picture

Submitted by Richard Stephenson on 15th July 2010
Fantastic concept. Rather than reward contributors they take their money. This is a sure way of avoiding consumer engagement. Maybe this is the start of a new business ethos... The consumers are serfs. Could be a book in this idea.
Robert's picture

Submitted by Robert on 15th July 2010
It is probably not going to be a big revenue earner!
Magazine Franchise's picture

Submitted by Magazine Franchise on 15th July 2010
Well, I've seen some novel ways at attempting to monetise online content, but this one looks like an absolute loser of a plan. Surely contributors should be rewarded, not charged!

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