The Ellsworth American: Digital

I sort of love what The Ellsworth American has done with its website. It no longer publishes the newspaper online. They've come up with two genius ideas and ways to get the news you want:

1. Digital version of the newspaper. For a fee, you can read The Ellsworth American online in a fully searchable digital edition. You have to PAY to read the newspaper online...what a novel idea.

2. Fenceviewer. This is where you can get free community news. It's not the newspaper, but web content FOR the web. I get the sense that the stories written here are more daily as opposed to the weekly paper. I could be wrong.

A newspaper making their readers pay for their content! How cool is that? Will other papers follow suit? Perhaps. If they want to stay in business I think they should. It makes perfect sense for a weekly to do what The Ellsworth American did. Have the most prominent news for free on the website...because other news outlets will probably be covering the same thing...and keep their longer feature articles for pay in the paper. This also ads added advertising possibilities to the company. Bravo!