AOL putting mags behind the wall
The Washington Post reports that, except for the Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated Web sites, Time Warner magazine sites are going to be placed behind AOL's subscribers-only wall. With all due respect to the fact that AOL's Jonathan Miller says "AOL is in the broadband game, and we're in it to win," this strategy is a repetition of the Pathfinder problem Time Warner created for itself in the mid-90s.
At that time, the magazine sites were subordinated to creating a TW Web brand, called Pathfinder (see the gutted, bombed-out remnants here), and as a result the magazines became disincented to invest in content for the Web. If magazines' sites are tied to the AOL fees and cannot build revenue by placing more and better content in front of an audience (whether the revenues come from advertising or subscriptions), they will grow resentful of the online side. I know this happened before, because I consulted to Sports Illustrated, and it was a viper pit of distrust for the "Web people," who were viewed as taking the best of the publication and leaving nothing for the editors to build a differentiated site.
Instead of placing sites entirely behind the wall, AOL Time Warner needs to leave the existing content outside to draw new audiences to better content growing behind the subscription wall -- what it comes down to is the fact that without new investment in new content or services related to content, there is no reason for customers to want to pay to get through the gates.
Posted by Mitch Ratcliffe at March 31, 2003 08:01 AM | TrackBack