This article on the Huffington Post does a good job of summarising the case against charging for online subscriptions.

What makes this an interesting debate is seemingly something that none of the main combatants can see: the “free vs subscriptions” debate is not either/or, winner takes all. It’s horses for courses (or some less cliched variant thereof). For some sites, such as many of the high-end financial sites, a paywall works just fine. For other sites, where similar content is available elsewhere, a paywall won’t work.

You might even say it’s a matter of commercial judgement.

For people to accuse the other side of “not getting it”, or being thieves, is to miss the point. But why let facts get in the way of a good argument?

Affinity deals are an arrangement between a magazine and a company to promote a product or service in a more creative way than simply running an advertisement. The magazine often benefits by being able to offer more benefits to its readers and subscribers.

Here are a few ideas for affinity deals:

• A company donates a prize to be given to one of your paid subscribers, making subscribers feel more appreciated
• Readers are offered a free gift when they subscribe to your magazine
• Readers receive a 10% discount card for a certain place when they subscribe to your magazine
• Other company provides a champagne evening for related readers with discounts in store (the store usually makes a lot of money for this, so both parties win)
• Slightly at a tangent, the magazine may give away the advertising space for free and then take a share of profits generated by the promotion. This lessens risk for the company if they are unwilling to buy an ad up-front.

We’ll have more updates on the blog in the future showing you how to find potential affinity partners.

As we have just launched ContraSwap here is what you need to know:

In the current economic climate advertising revenue is down across the board and marketing budgets have been cut. So opportunities to promote yourself can be difficult.

ContraSwap helps by allowing you to utilise unsold adverts without cutting into your marketing budget. Once you sign up to join the site you can offer unsold ad spaces to other publications and gain ContraPoints. You can use these ContraPoints to place your own ads in other magazines.

And you are not tied to a direct swap – for example you can accept an advertisement from one company into your publication or website. This will give you contrapoints and you are free to spend these wherever and whenever you like.

It’s that simple.

What are the benefits? Quick and easy deals and more exposure for your magazine. Furthermore, ContraSwap is free of charge although we plan to make this a subscription based service in August 2010.

So if you would be interested in becoming a founding member just join up at www.contraswap.com We will be developing and adding features over the next few months based directly on your suggestions and ideas.

Thanks for your help.

Sue