November 29, 2012

The Houston Chronicle Launches Subscription Site With Teensy Tiny ‘Subscribe’ Button

Hearst-owned newspaper The Houston Chronicle has launched an all-paid subscription content site, HoustonChronicle.com, with what may be the smallest homepage “subscribe” button we’ve ever seen. The paper’s main original site Chron.com, which currently attracts 12 million unique visitors per month, will continue as a completely free news source. Chron.com is typical of newspaper sites – loaded with clutter and advertising. When you compare its design with the new paid HoustonChronical.com’s layout, you can see the design…

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Is Wall Street’s Misunderstanding of Subscriptions Behind a Class Action Suit Against Zillow?

Zillow, Inc. (NASDAQ:Z) was socked today with the announcement of a class action lawsuit. The suit, filed by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, alleges that Zillow concealed its “difficulties” in acquiring new paying subscribers and in dealing with subscription account churn during a recent Class Period in September when the company was making a secondary stock offering. Zillow is an online real estate information site that allows the public to see data on US residential…

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How ArkansasOnline Makes Millions from Paywalled Local News

When the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette put all its local news behind a paywall in 2001, traffic dropped by 30% for three months… but then it rebounded and the site has gone from strength to strength since then. Executive VP for Digital Conan Gallaty spoke with us about the site’s marketing, price tests, and subscription conversion tactics including one of the best-designed paywalls we’ve ever seen on a newspaper site.

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