Free stuff
: The Wall Street Journal is beginning an experiment that should warm the hearts of bloggers. It is putting up a story today on the other side of its pay wall so bloggers can link to it.
The story today: An interview with John Kerry on his economic positions. (“I have historically always been what I would call a responsible, thoughtful Democrat who respects the laws of economics, and how money works, the psychology of the marketplace, the importance of confidence and fiscal responsibility.”)
This is the good work of Bill Grueskin, the managing editor of WSJ Online and a blog reader himself (I know because he caught me in a linking mistake; we exchanged email; we had lunch; we exchanged stories about online and 9/11 and blogs). Grueskin gets it.
This is an experiment; the Journal is not going to change the way it does business and get out of the subscription biz. Quite to the contrary, I think this could help build subscriptions to WSJ.com as more stories get quoted and linked and as new readers come to the Journal. This is good for bloggers and good for business. And it’s smart of the Journal to care about reaching out to this audience.
