A new subscription-based tech site 'The Information' has been launched by former Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Jessica Lessin. The technology publication will be oriented to professionals in the tech industry like entrepreneurs, executives and venture capitalists.
The access will cost $39 monthly or $399 annually.
The essence behind the publication is to report stories that will matter to professionals and help keep them ahead. The founder of the publication believes that there is much clutter in daily tech news and not many offer an investigative, analytic reporting.
"The opportunity exciting to me was to build a different type of publication, relevant and smart for both people who work in the industry but also people outside the industry who want to know more about it," Harvard graduate Lessin said in an interview. "It's for the audience who aren't just scanning the headlines, but those who come read a publication on a deeper level."
The Information has been launched with just eight staff in total, comprising of five full-time reporters, a developer and two part-time contributors. Given the number of staff, Lessin aims to produce only few quality pieces daily to start with. The advice to the reporters is that they should focus on areas in which they can create deeper impacts.
There are no plans for adopting an advertising scheme for the tech publication as it contrasts with their mission values. "I really don't think the ad business model is aligned with our mission. Any publication that makes a meaningful amount of money through advertising ends up writing stories that generate a lot of traffic to generate a lot of ad dollars. Publications wrestle with that editorial decision," said Lessin.
However, the smaller outlets are being seen as one of the prime threats to the site's monetization model. As soon as the story is published on esteemed publications (that might be behind paywalls) smaller outlets aggregate those stories and disgorge them for the readers who don't have the subscriptions for those sites. But Lessin is not at all worried about the aggregation. She believes that her publication is targeted to different type of audience.
"Aggregation and summary is a natural part of the business. At the end of the day, audiences going to aggregated articles aren't the people that we're focused on," she added. "The way I see it, it's a way to help get our brand out there to people who are never going to be subscribers, while we focus on a different type of audience."
