This person might have chosen to read the New York Post with his coffee, if it were free on the... [+]
The "most egregious paywall yet" is how one tech writer described the system introduced last year by the New York Post for managing its web traffic from the iPad. Basically, if you wanted to read the Post on your iPad, your only option was to install its iOS app and pay $6.99 a month for a subscription, or else use a browser other than Apple's pre-installed Safari.
Egregious, maybe, but also short-lived. Almost exactly one year after slamming the gate shut, the Post has quietly rolled it back up, as NY Convergence noted. Opening nypost.com in Safari on the iPad now brings up a message inviting the user to download the Post's app, but click "Cancel" and you're free to browse the site just as you can on the web.
There's not even a story quota, as The New York Times has on its website. (The Times currently allows 10 articles per user per month, although that's per device, and once you pass the limit you can still access articles via links from elsewhere.) Or, if there is, it's set very high. I loaded more than 25 articles without running into a paywall.
Why the change in strategy? I sought an answer from someone at the Post but haven't heard back. But the answer likely has something to do with the increasing importance of the iPad and other tablets as a source of traffic. Next year, tablets will surpass smartphones as a source of mobile web traffic, and they'll make up 10% of all web traffic by 2014. And between tablets, the competition's not even close, with the iPad accounting for more than 90% of all traffic.
On the other hand, the Post has managed to get some traction with its paid app, which is No. 4 on the iTunes Store's list of the top-grossing news apps. Only the Times and The Daily are making more from subscriptions. (No. 3 is Zinio, which is a magazine reader app covering numerous titles.) The question is to what extent that traction depends on the Post maintaining a rigid paywall on the iPad. If it quickly falls off the top grossing list, we'll know the answer.
Like the Post, The Daily is also owned by News Corp. I asked its publisher, Greg Clayman, whether it might be taking a cue from his sister publication and reassessing the relationship between app strategy and web strategy.
Clayman pointed out that The Daily already makes all of its content available on the web for free to facilitate sharing. "What we haven't built is a destination website as the destination we'd like to see you in is one of our apps," he said. "Not to say it's not something we'd consider, but for now apps are primary consumption and web primarily for sharing and social."
