NY Times to charge for e-mail alerts

The New York Times is going to turn its popular e-mail alert tracker into a subscription service, charging at least $19.95 for a year ("a special introductory rate"). The current free service -- a great service with 500,000 subscribers-- called NewsTracker will be eliminated after two weeks. As a promotion, the new subscribers will be offered a $10 gift certificate to The Times' online store.

This is an interesting idea and one many have speculated sites might try. But with 500,000 subscribers, the NewsTracker e-mails offered a lot of advertising revenue potential. Rafat Ali reports on PaidContent.org that the new service won't have ads in it, which seems odd -- the ad revenue from the free service seems to have much more revenue potential than the subscription fee from a paid service (which no doubt will have fewer subscribers).

What's most odd about this plan is that The Times is making its breaking news e-mail alerts exclusive to subscribers of this service. Since so many sites offer comparable breaking news alerts -- and since their primary purpose is to drive traffic to the Web site -- it seems odd that The Times is discontinuing this as a free service.

May 28, 2003 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(0)

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