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Ireland.com fees aid Irish Independent
Friday, June 07 2002
by Matthew Clark


Unison.ie, the on-line home of the Irish Independent, said it has seen a sharp
rise in visitors following Ireland.com's decision to start charging for access.



Ireland.com blocked off free access to the on-line version of the Irish Times
newspaper starting this week and now charges readers EUR79 per year. 



Its major rival in the Irish market, the Irish Independent, said that on the day
the Irish Times charges began, traffic doubled to the Unison.ie Web site, which
is home to the Irish Independent and other regional titles.



"We know the traffic has gone way up because the bandwidth required to run the
site doubled on the day Ireland.com started charging," said Mark Lawlor,
managing director of Internet Ireland, the company that controls Unison. 



Although there are no figures for June with respect to Unison's specific user
numbers, the site did have 8.5 million page impressions in May with 600,000
unique users in the month, Lawlor said.



Unison is now requiring visitors to register for access the site, sparking
concerns that Unison may also begin charging for access. But according to Lawlor,
Unison has no plans to charge for access to the vast majority of its content for
the time being. "We plan to continue to offer most of our regular content for
free, and there are no existing plans to begin charging," Lawlor said. 



Visitors who have never been to the site before will be required to register
immediately, while existing readers will have two months to register. 



The Unison chief said that the registration process was designed to help the Web
site better understand who its readers are. "Some advertisers are still
hesitant to go on-line; with a better understanding of who our users are, we
could offer them more value for their money," Lawlor told ElectricNews.Net. 



"We want to offer our subscribers a better service, but we can't do that unless
we know what they want," he added. In future, Lawlor envisions charging for some
premium services, such as access to its archives, but there are no current plans
to do so. 



With the registration process in place, the Web site is now letting users tailor
the layout of Unison if they register, which will allow them to put information
they consider most relevant on their own customised Unison Home page. Items such
as stock quotes, regional newspapers, breaking news and TV listings can be set up
to serve each individual user's preferences on the Unison homepage. 



All of the technology that Unison is using for the customisation service, as well
as for the registration process itself, was developed in-house, Lawlor said. "Our
tack is not bluster; we have quietly developed these services, including
Unison's ISP business, and the results are beginning to show as we sign up new
customers," he said. 



Unison is a brand controlled by ISP and communications service provider Internet
Ireland. Internet Ireland is owned by Chorus, the cable television company 50
percent owned by Independent News & Media. Internet Ireland employs 11 currently.