Hulu Gets Squeezed

Paywall Success: It’s far too early to tell for sure, but early signs are positive that the New York Times’ much-derided paywall is actually working. Felix Salmon breaks down the numbers, concluding that the NYT is well on its way to reaching 300,000 paying subscribers in a year. In fact, it already has 244,000. That doesn’t guarantee long-term success, of course. There’s no telling how much the declining page views to NYTimes.com has hurt potential ad sales. And there are still plenty of ways around the subscription wall. But Salmon, who was himself a doubter, is becoming a wary believer.

News Site Design Woes: The biggest challenge for most publishers isn’t getting people to visit their sites. That’s a big one, but the bigger one is getting those people to stick around. Sites are constantly trying to up the number of pages consumed during visits. That’s because the online ad world works when you churn impressions. The perverse effect of this has been an arms race of links and callouts that have left news sites horribly cluttered and frankly ugly. Designer Andy Rutledge breaks down the ugliness of news sites by using NYTimes.com as a prime example. The net effect of the barrage of links and content come-ons is the reader feels the site devalues its news. That’s a shame.