New York Times erects paywall

The New York Times has launched a pay-for-content model via digital subscription on March 24th in Canada and March 28th in the U.S.A.  Non-paying users will be able to access 20 articles per month at no charge before being asked to subscribe.  Their costs for digital subscriptions range from US$15 to US$35 every four weeks, depending on application (Web, smartphone, tablet, or several combined.)  
http://www.printaction.com/News/20110322-nyt-paywall.htm

World's 1st tablet newspaper coming 2 yr iPad soon?

Futurist Ross Dawson has resurrected the question of what will replace newspapers by predicting the extinction of newspapers as we know them in the U.S. by 2017 and Canada by 2020:  http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/11/02/u-s-newspapers-could-fade-in-seven-years-in-related-news-were-moving-to-mongolia/.  


Also recently, Sachin Kalbag, a columnist for India Today, logged an interesting reaction to octogenarian global media magnate Rupert Murdoch's plan to launch the world’s first newspaper for tablet computers: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/118309/COLUMNS/digital-ink-media-king-murdochs-newspaper-that-isnt.html. 


Earlier this year Murdoch was slammed for urging newspapers to charge for their on-line content: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/apr/13/gordon-brown-paywalls.  Speculation has continued to mount as to whether Murdoch's vision for a tablet newspaper is feasible:  http://www.pcworld.com/article/203332/could_an_ipad_newspaper_from_news_corp_succeed.html.


Update on 15 Dec 2010:  The 5th annual North American newspaper preview survey from Toronto-based KubasPrimedia shows the newspaper industry is optimistic about 2011.  http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/media/article.jsp?content=20101201_150717_6048