Andrew Sullivan goes indie

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:30:00 +0000

Extra! Extra! The Daily Dish is going independent. Andrew Sullivan, blogger extraordinaire, declared today that his venerable, high-profile, prolific blogging operation will no longer depend on the largess of corporate owners like Time, the Atlantic or the Daily Beast to operate. He's going indie, and depending on readers to pay up.

The announcement sent shock waves through Twitter. It's a risky, bold move. Very few people have figured out how to get readers to pay for content on the Web. Sullivan's model is innovative: He plans to eschew advertising altogether. Instead, we get what he has dubbed "freemium-based metering."

Our particular version will be a meter that will be counted every time you hit a "Read on" button to expand or contract a lengthy post. You'll have a limited number of free read-ons a month, before we hit you up for $19.99. Everything else on the Dish will remain free. No link from another blog to us will ever be counted for the meter - so no blogger or writer need ever worry that a link to us will push their readers into a paywall. It won't. Ever. There is no paywall. Just a freemium-based meter. We've tried to maximize what's freely available, while monetizing those parts of the Dish where true Dishheads reside. The only tough love we're offering is the answer to the View From Your Window Contest. You'll have to become a member to find where the place is. Ha!

Andrew Sullivan to leave the Daily Beast, taking The Dish with him

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:30:00 +0000

Andrew Sullivan, the preeminent blogger whose platform, the Daily Dish, has been hosted by Time, the Atlantic and, currently, the Daily Beast, is making his boldest move ever: taking the site solo, hoping that readers will pay for content directly. The former New Republic editor and Salon columnist announced today that he, along with the Dish's executive editors, Patrick Appel and Chris Bodenner, has signed an agreement forming Dish Publishing LLC, an independent publishing company that will continue to run the Dish without the use of advertising revenue or venture capital.

The move is a gamble that he hopes will one day become the norm within the journalism industry. Recalling the old advertising adage, "If you're not paying for the product, you are the product being sold," he wrote in the announcement, "we felt more and more that getting readers to pay a small amount for content was the only truly solid future for online journalism."

Salon.com > blogging

Andrew Sullivan goes indie

Andrew Sullivan to leave the Daily Beast, taking The Dish with him