 dear friends the online content business is doing fantastic sound crazy perhaps with advertising online and off taking it on the chin for the past two years online content sites have been shutting down laying off staff and pulling back on their offerings however this horrible environment has resulted in an undeniable trend content businesses are challenging people to pay for content finally after five years of free people are beginning to understand that online as in the real world you get what you pay for and they are taking out their credit cards u s consumers spent NUMBER million on paid online content last year a NUMBER percent increase over NUMBER spending levels according to online publishers association and that figure is expected to increase exponentially this year look at these success stories new york times digital has been steadily increasing its paid content services over the last year and registered a NUMBER percent increase in its total revenues for the latest quarter URL brought over NUMBER million in subscriptions last quarter an increase of almost NUMBER percent over the year ago quarter URL will reach over a million paying subscribers by the end of this year realnetworks consumer multi media subscription service has more than NUMBER NUMBER subscribers bringing in NUMBER NUMBER million in the last quarter the wall street journal online added over NUMBER NUMBER new paying customers last quarter bringing its subscriber base to NUMBER NUMBER URL has signed up NUMBER NUMBER subscribers in three months since it launched its premium site in may in recognition of this trend we re hosting the third installation of our innovative hyperlink content management summit on october NUMBER NUMBER the event charts the changes in the content industry from free to paid subscription services and the technologies that are enabling the management and monetizing of content our previous content management summit aka digital rights summit on october NUMBER last year in new york city and january NUMBER in los angeles were unqualified successes the content management summit iii taking place in new york at the millennium broadway on october NUMBER NUMBER will bring together the NUMBER executives from the leading content and distribution firms for a focused day of networking and discovering practical solutions the event will feature presentations from software and services companies providing services and solutions for selling distributing managing and protecting content we re thrilled that microsoft teleknowledge emeta and liquify will all be demonstrating their latest products and services the event will also feature six intimate round tables focusing on various aspects of online content these panels are meant to provide an informal forum to discuss the challenges facing these specific vertical markets the changes in the sectors since the dot com downfall and best practices in the industry the panels will feature leading practitioners in each sector and will also include an interactive question and answer session with the audience among the round table topics will be weblogs how they are affecting big media companies editorially as well as in content delivery production mechanisms financial news and information companies how they are using technologies to deliver content to users and how the economics have changed since the stock market downfall business information services such as hoovers lexis nexis and others best practices in the industry niche product launches and revenue streams daily news newspaper companies publishing online how speed dictates technology choices and the move towards paid content and its implications among other issues consumer and entertainment publishers how do publishers determine the value of entertainment content the push towards paid subscriptions online advertising and other issues join us on october NUMBERth for this very important event if you are directly responsible for content management at a major content site you may qualify for a vip ticket please e mail your request with your name title and bio to hyperlink invite URL if you are with a software or services provider or anyone not directly responsible for the purchase of content management software or solutions you can purchase a ticket to this event for NUMBER NUMBER at hyperlink invite URL best regards jason mccabe calacanis editor in chief ceo venture reporter silicon alley reporter this email is being sent to zzzz URL if you would rather not receive these infrequent updates simply click hyperlink here and you will be removed instantly you can also click the link here or cut and paste it into your browser hyperlink URL venture reporter NUMBER west NUMBERth street NUMBERth floor new york new york NUMBER phoe NUMBER NUMBER NUMBER 