The free ride's over (again) at the New York Times website. As expected, the Gray Lady's going to start making bitches pay for her services on the side of the information superhighway. Today the Times announced the details on its upcoming website pay wall; starting in 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month, then they'll be required to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. (Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site.) According to this article on the Times website (copied and pasted below for you to read for free), the whole fate of the paper is riding on this one: more ›

The Times is tired of giving it up for free, and at a staff meeting yesterday executive editor Bill Keller revealed two possible scenarios that would force website readers to make an honest woman out of the Gray Lady. One scheme is a "meter system" which would kick in after a reader hits a predetermined limit of word-count or page views. At that point, the meter would start running and further content would come at a price. A second scenario could be a "membership" system akin to public television. Readers who pledge money to the site would be invited to join the cool kids in the "New York Times community" and get sweet merch like Times baseball caps, or tote bags, or plush Moose dolls. The Observer, which got the scoop on the announcement, also quotes Keller as saying—and this has got to be a joke, right?—that "he wouldn't even be opposed to offering a donor access to a Page One editorial meeting as long as it doesn't affect the paper competitively." Well, if that actually happens we are so ready to pay to join those meetings and finally get the Hipster Grifter above the fold where she belongs. more ›

Last week there was considerable ebullience voiced by Red Hook residents who were taking full advantage of the free shuttle buses and Water Taxi service provide by IKEA. This weekend many were looking forward to “hacking” free Water Taxi to get to the food vendors’ first weekend back at the Red Hook ball fields. An IKEA rep even told the Daily News, “We are thrilled that we are providing free transit options for the people of New York to come to IKEA and to come to Red Hook. We support mass transit, and if people are using our services and not going to IKEA, that's fine with us as well." more ›