San Jose Mercury News begins registration

Knight Ridder's San Jose Mercury News will begin requiring registration of its online visitors beginning tomorrow (Wednesday). Here's a link to a reader FAQ explaining why it's happening.

I wrote about Knight Ridder's Kansas City and Charlotte papers going to a mandatory registration model late last year in a report on online registration for the Newspaper Association of America. Apparently Knight Ridder likes what it has seen and plans to roll it out for all its major papers.

Employees were sent the following internal memo today:

MercuryNews.com To Introduce Registration and Member Benefits Program

What is happening?

Starting tomorrow, April 14, we will be introducing site registration on MercuryNews.com, similar to what has become commonplace across the newspaper industry.

Many of the country's leading newspapers, including The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Dallas Morning News, already require registration to read articles on their Web sites. KansasCity.com and Charlotte.com were the first Knight Ridder Web sites to make the transition to a registration format, which launched Oct of 2003. The rest of Knight Ridder's largest newspapers have been rolling out over the past several weeks.

Why are we doing this?

Registration has become common in the online news industry as media companies work to make their Web sites more useful to readers and advertisers. Registration will enable us to learn more about how people are using the site. It allows us to gather information on reader's interests and serve targeted content (in the form of email newsletters today and on the web site in the future). Offering newsletters via a registration process has resulted in a much higher sign-up rate (vs our current process). It also gives a mechanism to communicate about new features and services.

Registration also increases the value of the local visitor to our advertisers as well. We create additional revenue from the visitor who signs up for email newsletters and special deals by sending them targeted marketing messages. In the future we will also be able to better target advertising on the site as well (which is of more value to advertisers and a better reader experience as well).

The registration database will also be an asset to us in acquiring new print subscribers as well.

We are adhering to a strict privacy policy and will not be selling or providing reader e-mail address or personal information with any 3rd parties. If readers sign-up for "Special Deals", they will receive messages from 3rd party advertisers, but those messages will be sent by KRD (using a e-mail provider). We will also be deploying industry best practices so as to not inundate our registered users with marketing messages.

How will it work?

When a person goes to any section of www.mercurynews.com – such as News, Sports, Business or Entertainment – he will be able to read all of the headlines and information on that page as usual. The first time a person clicks on a headline link to read an article, an introductory screen explaining registration will appear. That screen will outline the numerous benefits of registration and will link to the registration form. Any person who completes the brief registration form will become a member of the site.

As an incentive, any reader who registers in the first month will automatically be entered into drawings to win valuable prizes.

When is this happening?

Registration is scheduled to launch over night on April 13, 2004, so most readers will experience registration when they come to the site on April 14..

Will any content or services be accessible WITHOUT registering?

Yes. Registration will not be required to use Classifieds, Cars.com, CareerBuilder, Real Estate or the Shopping services on MercuryNews.com. In other words, people who choose not to register still will be able to use these services for free.

Do we anticipate a large drop-off in readers?

Other Knight Ridder sites have not experienced a drop-off in readers, especially LOCAL readers. Kansas City and Charlotte first experienced a drop-off of non-local readers, but since moving to a "one page registration-free" model, number of readers has bounced back to pre-registration levels. Other sites that have launched since the new policy was in place has not experienced a drop-off in readers.

How are readers and advertisers being notified?

Print readers will be introduced to registration through a broad marketing and promotion campaign. In-paper advertisements, online notices and broadcast spots will emphasize the benefits of signing up as a MercuryNews.com member. Advertisers have been notified individually.