[ContentBiz] Gated Content Now Drives 50% of Salon's Revenues -- How it's Working

"When Salon gated off 20% of its site for paying subscribers only in an attempt to keep the wolf from the door back in April 2001, few media (including us) expected the tactic to really make a difference.

Three months later only 12,000 of its more than three million regular monthly visitors had paid up, and the site was out hat-in-hand again looking for investors to keep afloat during the worst of the recession. Subscriptions were not the golden pill that solves all ills.

At an estimated $2 million per year in subscription sales plus an additional estimated half a million in Day Pass ad sales, that 20% of gated content is now contributing roughly half of Salon's total income."