Over the past seven years or so I have been commenting on Dow Jones and its policy in regard to the Wall Street Journal online edition. First a refresher: Originally WSJ online was free. It went to a paid model several years ago and I believe it has nearly 700,000 paid subscribrs (making it the largest paid circulation publication online).

I commend Dow Jones for attaining this paid subscription level. The question to me has always been the following: "How large would the online readership be if the site was either totally free or partially free (that is, articles available for free for a number of days and then a paid plan)?" And if the readership was 20 times its present size (or greater), "what would the ad revenues scale to in comparison to what they are today?"

We will never be able to answer most of these questions because Dow Jones will never break out some of these numbers. A further aside: "Is the online edition profitable?" It should be, but I do not know.

I got to thinking about all of these issues again during my travels in Europe (I am writing this late at night in London). Yesterday I wanted the American press perspective on the New Hampshire primary. First I went to nytimes.com (The New York Times). Here I found great frustration. I could read the headlines and a few words of each article, but if I wanted to read the whole article I had to register (I hate registering). Then I went to WSJ online. I have been a WSJ subscriber (print and online) for years --- I rarely if ever use the online edition, but it came in handy to read about the primary.

After reading my fill of politics, I decided to jump around the WSJ site. I was impressed! There are numerous articles and columnists that appear only online and many other valuable features. The whole package is mighty nice.

But what would the revenues be for WSJ online if it was both partially open and closed? Is Dow Jones getting the benefits of contextual ad placements and other paid search concepts?

Great stuff to be thinking about at this hour!

One more thing: I read in the International Herald Tribune a column by Joe Sharkey titled "The Phone American Can't use Abroad." (Thursday, January 29, 2004.) Joe mentions that he was shocked that he could not use his Verizon phone from New York City in London because England (and much of Europe) use GSM whereas Verizon is based on CDMA (hope I got that correct). The amazing thing about this admission is that the writer states that he had switched from AT&T Wireless to Verizon before his trip.

"Hey Joe" -- AT&T Wireless in New York City offers GSM phones. Why did you switch if you wanted one phone number that would work in New York
City and London????

Ironically, I wrote about my Treo 600 in this space a few days ago. I switched from Verizon to AT&T Wirelss for two reasons: first was that Verizon does not offer the Treo 600, and second AT&T Wireless offered both the Treo 600 and GSM. In the past seven days I have been in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tucson, New York City, London, Stockholm, Berlin and Paris and I have not had one problem calling anywhere in the United States or in Europe. In addition I have used the Treo 600 for both emailing and checking out weather and stock reports on a variety of Web sites.

It is kind of shocking to read this column by Joe Sharkey --- he really needs help.