Journalism Online, which was set up by former US newspaper executives Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery, will be used by the site to support its members-only area Passport
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Online-only, international news agency GlobalPost will next week become the latest news organisation to introduce paid-content technology from Journalism Online .
Journalism Online, which was set up by former US newspaper executives Steve Brill, Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery in June last year and has received investment from News Corp, will be used by the site to support its members-only area Passport .
From 12 August a membership to Passport, which offers interviews with GlobalPost correspondents and in-depth news reports and briefings as benefits, will cost $2.96 a month or $29.95 for the year. Journalism Online's Press+ system will handle the registration and transaction process for new members, a spokesman for GlobalPost told Journalism.co.uk.
The new system will also encourage frequent visitors to the site to buy a membership pacakage. GlobalPost CEO Philip Balboni told Poynter Online that he hope 9,000 people would join Passport as a result of the new system, a lower price and new members-only features.
GlobalPost attracted 900,000 unique users to its website in July, but so far has just 500 customers to its membership service, which currently costs $49.99 a year for an individual membership. In July US news site Lancaster Online became the first to use Journalism Online to launch a micropayments platform to paywall its obituaries section. According to the company, by the end of 2009 publishers representing more than 506 newspapers and magazines had signed "letters of intent to become affiliates" with Journalism Online.
GlobalPost, which launched in January 2009, is not the first news site to experiment with a paid-for members area: the Guardian is also developing plans for a members club, while the Times and Sunday Times launched a members-only service before erecting site-wide paywalls.
