No. 1 U.S. newspaper will not go non-profit route

The nation's leader in online readership, The New York Times, is closer to announcing a new business model following months of industry discussion about various ideas ranging from an iTunes-type system for purchasing articles (which The Wall Street Journal might enact) to newspapers becoming non-profits. The New York Times is going to ask some readers to pay.

On the same day The New York Times launched a new Adobe-powered electronic reader, the newspaper conducted a strategy session. As the session was taking place, New York Times staff members were tweeting about the newspaper's plans for the future. The biggest news from the session is that the Times is saying "no" to non-profit status and "yes" to sort of charging readers.

Here's the deal: It appears the fees will not keep anyone from reading the articles on the paper's Web site -- all the current content will remain free -- and that readers will choose whether they want to become "members" that pay money and gain access to special content. Reporter Michael Luo described it on Twitter as "some kind of premium, concierge type membership."

The New York Times plan sounds similar to the online operations of The Wall Street Journal, where anyone can read the top news stories but you must pay to access other content. That plan will change to a micropayment system where readers pay for individual articles later this year and the newspaper's owner -- News Corp. -- plans to enact user access fees at more papers.