The Salon Experiment

The new era of the web is just getting started. Salon.com has announced (Thanks /.)that they will be offering their website for with a optional $30 a year advertisement free viewing preference (Also some 'bonus' features). For everyone else who doesnt wish to pay they will be subjected to the huge "CNET style" advertisements that pretty much cover the pages for people running in lower resolutions. The article I have going up this Thursday actually talks about this subject but damn it Salon beat me to the punch. At any rate to some people "advertisement free" for $2.50 a month seems like a pretty good deal. When the Shack ad contract expires here I've actually been considering doing something similar. Advertisements around the web are going to get bigger and (hopefully for advertisers) harder to miss. A lot of web companies are going to be keeping an eye on the Salon experiment.