In what may be a first step in an ongoing process of opening up the online Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Co (NWS-A) will offer free access to a newly created Web site which features its editorial and opinion columns. At this time the regular news portion of the site will remain behind the subscription wall.
Also being offered on the site will be video clips from the Fox news television channel.
You can access the site either through wsj.com/opinion, or OpinionJournal.com. Either one will take you to the same Web site.
The Wall Street Journal is the bellwhether of the business and financial news Web sites. Whatever they do their competition will pretty much have to follow. One of their chief competitors, the Financial Times, opened up access to their Web site on a limited basis not too long ago.
All of this centers around the question of whether opening up the Wall Street Journal site for free, will be able to make up for the guaranteed subscription revenue, which can be counted on over a period of time. An ad-supported business model would put them back to the cyclical results that comes with it.
The introduction of this newly created site which combines the editorial and opinion columns, will probably be used as a trial balloon to see how the ad support works.
It's quite possible the Journal may end up being a hybrid of the existing site, with both a subscription and ad model being used. That's really not a bad idea. The only thing that would change that is if the advertising model becomes extraordinarily lucrative, which would make a hybrid or subscription model obsolete.
In the business and financial area you can command premium prices for advertising, so that's a definite possibility. I don't think the company needs to be in any hurry to make any rash moves. It'll play out from trying a few things first.
Why it's important to us is it can give us a case study which can be used in our own online businesses.
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