{"id":643812,"date":"2013-02-25T16:25:52","date_gmt":"2013-02-25T21:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paidcontent.org\/?p=225113"},"modified":"2013-02-25T16:25:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-25T21:25:52","slug":"three-weeks-in-it-may-be-time-for-andrew-sullivan-to-tweak-the-dishs-metered-paywall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/643812","title":{"rendered":"Three weeks in, it may be time for Andrew Sullivan to tweak The Dish\u2019s metered paywall"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Andrew Sullivan announced that he was\u00a0taking his immensely popular blog, The Dish, independent<\/a>\u00a0and behind a metered paywall, he raised $333,000<\/a> in 24 hours. In the remainder of January, The Dish raised an additional $185,000. Then, on February 21, the site turned on its paywall, and so far this month it\u2019s raised $93,000, Sullivan wrote Monday<\/a>. That\u2019s a total of $611,000 in a little under two months \u2014 about two-thirds of the $900,000 Sullivan believes the site needs to operate in its first year.<\/p>\n

The pace of subscriptions is clearly slowing \u2014 it took a day to reach the first third of the funding The Dish needs in 2013, and nearly two months to raise the second third. How long will it take to raise that remaining $300,000 or so? Sullivan, who will be speaking about paid content models at the pC Live conference on April 17, 2013<\/a>, took a look at the number of readers who\u2019ve maxed out their limit of free \u201cread on\u201d stories (seven per month; short posts that are primarily links aren\u2019t counted) and noted that 91 percent of them haven\u2019t yet hit that limit:<\/p>\n

\"Andrew<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge now is for The Dish to get those people who are reading regularly but haven\u2019t yet subscribed to do so. \u201cIf you\u2019re reading the Dish, and are part of that 20,000 group who\u2019ve clicked on more than four \u2018read-ons\u2019 in three weeks, you\u2019re a real, solid reader of the Dish. You\u2019ve proven it,\u201d Sullivan wrote \u2014 so, he said, it\u2019s time for that group to pay up.<\/p>\n

How do you convert the next wave of readers?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s possible that those 21,000 readers Sullivan is identifying as Dish regulars will simply hit the meter \u2014 at seven stories \u2014 and subscribe. It\u2019s also possible February could end up being an unusually low subscription month because it\u2019s only 28 days long, and the meter resets every thirty days, so some readers might get in under the wire this month. But if the pace of new subscriptions is a little slower than The Dish would like, here are a couple ideas:<\/p>\n