...publication to attempt a paywall on its Web site. (I know what you're thinking: do people still read Time magazine?)Time has decided to dive head first into an issue that has bedeviled many a news organization before it: how to wean online readers off their addictions to free content.
But Time's approach is more a process of weaning readers than forcing them to quit cold turkey. Starting this week, it replaced most of the content that appeared in its current issue with abridged articles and summaries online. The move is meant to drive readers to newsstands and Time's iPad applications, where the magazine costs $4.99.
Are they serious? Drive readers to newsstands? The only thing this will drive readers to is other Web sites.
(Oh, and by the way, which famous newsweekly published that Rolling Stone piece on General McChrystal again -- free of charge on its Web site -- before it hit the newsstands? Hint: it wasn't Rolling Stone.)
Time, take a good, long look at Newsweek because that's where you're headed -- for sale.
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