In 3MR:
"...General-interest sites such as Slate aren't giving up on subscriptions.
But that publication's decision points to one of the trickier strategic
questions Web publishers have pondered: Can a site recover in subscription
revenue what it will initially lose in ad revenue by shutting out nonpaying
subscribers? Slate, for one, now claims about 20,000 paying readers, down
significantly from the roughly 170,000 that visited the site in a normal
month prior to the move to subscriptions."
Wired News even detailed a funny Slate promo in a piece showing the
"cute and fuzzy and Hallmarkian" direction of Microsoft to soften its image:
"A Microsoft press release today [June 8] urges Father's Day shoppers
to 'forget the ties and tools' and get dad a subscription to Slate, the
company's online journal of news and commentary. If buyers act now, they
can enter to win one of five free WebTV Plus systems, complete with a wireless
keyboard and one free month of service, 'so dad can view Slate magazine
on TV! (Exclamation theirs.)"
No word on whether dad has the patience to sit through reading Slate
while "60 Minutes" is on another channel...
Slate Regains the DeathRace Lead
With Snap! getting money from sugar-daddy NBC, and HotWired supposedly
nearing profitability (we'll believe it when we see the receipts), that
leaves Microsoft's pricey Slate site in the worst shape. Still, Slate says
it has reached 20,000 subscriptions so far. A piece in the Wall Street
Journal Interactive said: