Thursday, Jul. 02, 2009

Can AppellationAmerica.com make it as a subscription site?

By Andy Perdue, Wine Press Northwest

Have you ever visited AppellationAmerica.com? It's a Web site that is a terrific resource for winery information as well as well-written articles.

One of the site's best features is it celebrates the diversity of North American wine, rather than just focusing on the bigger, better-known regions.

Starting next week, Appellation America is switching to a subscription model, meaning you will need to pay $49.95 per year or $4.95 per month to access it.

My questions to you are this:

-- Have you ever visited Appellation America?

-- If so, would you (or will you) pay for access?

Newspapers and magazines have long struggled with the question of providing free access to content. Do they follow the pay-to-read model, or do they rely on advertising to pay the bills? With few exceptions, newspapers and magazines provide access to content at no cost, hoping advertising will follow.

According to Quantcast, Appellation America's audience is nearly 70,000 people per month. That's a pretty good number (about four times what winepressnw.com receives). It's not nearly enough to rely solely on online advertising, which likely is one of the main reasons for moving to the subscription model.

(Wine Press Northwest relies primarily on its printed magazine for revenue and would have a difficult time paying the bills for a Web-only publication.)

Tom Wark of Fermentation writes about the changes at Appellation America. He says he would gladly pay for the quality of content on the site. Since he writes for and promotes the site through his PR firm, I don't know that he will have to pony up the dollars for it, but he makes some excellent points.

What do you think?

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