Readers triple and ads are up

by Gerald Burstyn

        After being a paid subscription site for two and a half years, Slate, the tony political and cultural online magazine backed by Microsoft, announced in February it was going free. It was the right decision, it now appears.
        Traffic has tripled, with unique visitors rising to 697,000 in three months, according to Media Metrix, and advertisers, attracted to the larger audience, are responding, reports the magazine.
        ''We're on pace this quarter to beat the previous three quarters combined with respect to advertising revenue,'' says associate publisher Cyrus Krohn, though declining to reveal figures. ''May and June will be record months.'' New advertisers include FirstUSA and Brooks Brothers.
        ''They should have [gone free] years ago,'' says Ramzi Zakharia, a media manager at New York's K2 Design. Zakharia observes that there are only two things people are willing to pay for on the internet--financial advice and sex. ''Slate doesn't offer either.''
        Slate describes itself as ''the online magazine of news, politics, and culture,'' with feature articles on everything from foreign policy to fashion and movies, and its readership runs to the well-educated and well-heeled.
        But it was a real question even when Slate launched whether such a readership would ever march forth in numbers sufficient to make Slate a profitable enterprise. Such publications have a long history of not making money and are usually supported by deep-pocketed philanthropists, often with political agendas to advance.
        Though the magazine, being online, faced none of the printing costs of a print publication, it went to great expense to attract the very best editorial talent, including editor Michael Kinsley, formerly of the New Republic and a popular TV commentator. Would even Microsoft endure losses endlessly, and to what end?
        The answer became ``no'' in February, and Slate set about to remake itself as a more viable consumer publication.
        That new tact includes a site redesign, which was unveiled last week. Earlier this month the magazine launched a branding campaign (tagline: ''What Matters''), and an accompanying sweepstakes featuring high-brow prizes such as cooking lessons in Paris and an art appreciation holiday in Spain.
        Incorporated in the redesign are some new ad packages. One is an online advertorial offering with rich media features such as streaming video. There are also large vertical ad elements that are integrated into the body of the site, and Krohn says the effect is to move the magazine away from the ''surf and bolt'' look of so many sites.
        Whether these measures alone are enough to turn Slate into a profitable business proposition is an open question. The web, being the web, offers no real models or precedents to fall back on. Perhaps the worst cliché in the English language is Only Time Will Tell. In the case of Slate it happens to be true.