Salon.com has a “premium section.” Adcritic is a site that I have a membership to (it’s my industry).
Can you dopers point me towards any others you know of that are successful?
Fark.com has an area called TotalFark, where for a $5 monthly fee you can view every article that is submitted. A very small percentage – I’d guess somewhere around 2% – actually make it to the main page, so if you read Fark for the news items rather than the commentary, it’s not a bad value.
There’s another one I can think of right off the top of my head, but I’ll not mention it right now. Don’t worry; I’m sure someone else will be along to do so shortly.
The New York Times has a crossword subscription service; it’s about $40 a year for access to all the puzzles, which you can print out or do on your computer. There’s also forums, a “play online against people” function, etc. It seems to be quite successful; I quite like it. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re looking for, though.
Maybe Paltalk.com? It’s not really a website, more like a chat service with webcams.
ESPN.com has it’s Insider feature. I’m sure it’s doing pretty well when you consider the overall success of just about everything ESPN touches. They’ve already got an assload of content on the main site, and the feature columnists and special sections get the Insider only treatment.
I would join up if they unbundled it with that damn ESPN the Magaine. I refuse to subscribe to a magazine just to get the service. Though I think I’m the minority and that for most people the “Insider” service is actually the throw in, not the other way around.