NYT has been flying without a net for some time. That can’t last. If they continue in this manor, either their quality will seriously degrade OR they. must. charge.

The thought leader space is a bit of a different case. My scientific gut tells me that likely a good 75% of NYT readers value NYT content as significantly better than most other news sources. (I’m guessing Fox fans would likely feel the same.)

I don’t think we’d have anywhere near those #s on the thought leadership consumption space. I’ve been actively on-line in B2B sales and marketing for at least three years. I know what’s out there. I *might* pay for access to Tom Peters. Can’t think of what else I’d consistently pay for.

That said, my experience is one data point and does not a trend make. I also don’t represent a $50M business. We may be at the beginning of a very cool trend where businesses will pay for content that they value like I value the NYT.

If anyone can do it, Gini, you can.

I agree that most B2B “thought leaders” are more miss than hit and there is an echo chamber of a lot of people saying the same things. Heck, I’m guilty of it when I can’t think of a blog topic so I turn to my Google Reader for inspiration.

But I still think SMBs will pay for content they can’t get anywhere else. Of course, I have nothing to base this on than gut while you have real experience for it. Maybe I’m much too cocky?

Too often, though, B2B thought-leader orgs are more Miss than Hit. And there’s a LOT of recycling of material.

Plus, businesses have completely different quirks around what they will/won’t pay for. Often they’ll agree in theory that content is worth paying for, but don’t follow through.

I like your point about FT & WSJ – but they’ve been around for so long and have great perception as standard-bearers – how long would it take an unknown org to get there?

Today though it is easy. What can be done to prevent content being shared online? Not an awful lot. Even with paywalls being put in place, there are very few measures to prevent people sharing what they have read.

I know the counter argument would be that readers wouldn’t want to share content that is of such high quality and that gives them such a competitive advantage but I am not so sure. I still think much premium content would get out and spread.

I completely agree that if there is enough value and purpose then some people will be willing to reach into their pockets – your college example is a good one – but we are living in different times and for a news publisher to produce lots of great content that a strong readership will be willing to pay for but not pass on is extremely unlikely.

That’s just my take though. The challenge has been set. It’s a pretty tough one so we will have to see if they can succeed with a strategy that spells out ‘control’ to me.

I charge $9.95 for a reader to take out a subscription to this novel in progress. Why did I opt to go this way?

I think it’s an important experiment. First of all, the content is entirely unique. I’m rely on my rep as a writer to get people over the paywall. The pay is an important part of the experiment because what this is about is how novelists might reach their audiences directly – realizing the much vaunted new connections that the ‘net has promised us.

Without pay, what is there for aspiring writers? If the experience we have now is actually going to replace the printed word as we know it there has to be some kind of living for writers. So I took the plunge and started the experiment.

So far it’s not going as well as I’d like, but it’s generated some income for me. It remains an experiment, however, because it’s all one big learning experience. Among the many things I’ve learned is the disconnect in timing between getting the word out and the actual performance of a novel on the fly.

I’ll let everyone know when I’m done how I think it turned out. Yes, I’m keeping a lot of stats! But it is important to generate some kind of income for projects like this – otherwise there is little incentive to keep doing them. Eventually, we will all have to get used to paying something for certain kinds of unique content – or accept that quality must suffer.