January 2, 2008 from paidcontent.org: “a new report from Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang. WSJ.com revenue is currently pegged at $78 million annually, based on an estimated 989,000 subscribers paying $79/year”

November 5, 2008 from paidcontent.org: “WSJ.com is making more than $200 million from advertising and subscriptions, News Corp Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch told analysts during the company’s earnings call. He said the site is making “probably $100 million in subscriptions and certainly over $100 million in advertising.”

So either this information is inaccurate, or the site is really growing its paid readership. It is definitely probable that the current economic climate is raising interest in the publication. After all, the Financial Times Publishing unit announced that sales were up 14%, with ad revenue up 1% for the first 9 months this year. Awesome considering the world economy is down about 40% this year!

This reinforces the notion that people are always willing to pay for good information. Henry David Thoreau wrote that “A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.”

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Metaprinter predicts that this economy will drive newspapers to the brink of bankruptcy and force them to return to paid online subsciption models as a hedge against advertising revenues. After all, if a news site is not producing anything worth paying for, why would advertisers or readers patronize that establishment?