Don't Expect a Revolution Out of The New York Times' Paywall

The drumroll for The New York Times online paywall has been rumbling on for a year now, but now that details are leaking out, don't expect it to revolutionize the paywall business; it looks like it's going to be full of the strategic peculiarities that seem to beset the paywalls as they try to make their way in a mostly subscription-free online universe. Three, as-yet-unconfirmed, potential features from this Wall Street Journal story about the paywall stand out:

1. The probability it will charge a premium for iPad content, perhaps $20/month. As Felix Salmon points out -- and this, to me, has long been a hole in the market for iPad media apps -- if you can access the full NYT Web site on the iPad, why pay for the app? Particularly when it looks like the Web-only price will be cheaper?
2. That it is not doing all that much to close up "back door" accessing of its content -- such as when people get to nytimes.com through Google. It will allow anyone, no matter how much they've been to the site, to get content from the first page of search results without paying. That just urges people to see if they can get around it. Everyone knows that umping over paywalls is like hacking for those of us who don't know how to write code. That was fun! I just jumped over the paywall!
3. Thirdly, though only my gut -- and not the stats -- back this up, many of the Times' heavy online users are probably the same people willing to shell out for a print sub, and they won't have to pay for VIP access to the site either. (Yeah, I'm one of them.) This is probably an incremental play, laying the groundwork for when print isn't nearly as much of a factor.

Related:

• The New York Times' Paywall: Build Carefully to Avoid Collapse
• The New York Times Sees Its Paywall Future -- And It Looks Like Weight Watchers?
• Why The New York Times' Paywall Won't Lead It to Online Isolation