NY Times: 100K digital subscriptions in 3 weeks

Less than a month after erecting its Internet pay wall, the first reading on the New York Times's great gambit is in: over 100,000 new digital subscriptions.

Whether that's sustainable is the obvious question but in releasing the news, the Times said the numbers "meaningfully exceeded" expectations. That's obviously in the eye of the beholder. Internet publishers are watching the progress of this petri dish experiment with great interest. If it works, more publishers may copy the example as they seek to offset the impact of declining print revenues. In January, the Times announced that it planned to charge a fee for unlimited access to the web version of its paper. The plan, which went into effect last month, triggered no shortage of moans and groans with critics slamming the idea as defensive and backward-looking.

But based on the preliminary numbers, the plan is hardly the disaster that some predicted. The Times said that the early indicators remained "encouraging," but allowed that it "does not yet have visibility into conversion and retention rates for these paying customers after the initial promotional period."

One other point to note: The figures released today do not factor in the free starter subscriptions that were offered, though it does include a four-week trial launch promotion for $0.99.