The New York Times has announced the implementation of a paywall in Canada, as a test for implementation of the same digital subscriptions service in the US later this month. Readers are being asked to shell out between $15 to $35 a month for access to the paper's site, but there is an interesting twist: Readers who come across the paper's articles via Google news Canada, or through links from blogs and social media, will be able to read those articles for free.
This is not unusual for paywall protected sites, where it is often possible to Google the article's title or URL and get full access to the story. Twitter is currently going crazy with this topic, and the feedback so far is mixed. Some say the paywall makes a lot of sense given the changing media landscape, while others point out that so much news is available online for free that there is no need to pay for online access.