An online subscription for all occasions?

Continental publications such as Spanish newspaper El Pais started charging for online access a few months ago. More recently, The Guardian in the UK announced a move down the paid-for path. Already, WSJ and others are subscription-only, while access to various newspaper archives is starting to cost. Content may still be king, though increasingly it is not free: online subs to a few publications soon starts to build to a significant sum.

Now Borders founder Louis Borders has launched Keepmedia, an online portal providing access to archives of more than 100 magazines for a monthly fee of about USD5. Brill Media had a similar venture - Contentville - a while back that failed to prosper. Are consumers more willing now to pay for content? Well, I won't be forking out for The Corn & Soybean Digest or Religious Conference Manager anytime soon, but if Borders can get a critical mass of reasonable publications together - hey, Louis, there is this place called Europe with many English-language publications of its own - then we shall see. KeepMedia is currently offering a 7-day free trial with no credit card submission required.