FT blows single-use holes in its paywall

The FT is offering single-use links for its subscribers to share content.

It’s almost a Snapchat for news… 🙂

Interesting move, in that it potentially turns existing subscribers into advocates for the service – and adds value to their subscription, by making content sharable with colleagues. It doesn’t do anything to solve the social sharing problem – but that’s a separate challenge for them.

The news release went out today, but the surprise was rather blown last week by excited FT staff:

Genius idea: "gift" an @FT article to a friend who doesn't subscribe. Link expires after 1 click. Snapchat for news! pic.twitter.com/IoSDD4slot— Tim Bradshaw (@tim) November 14, 2013

[Full disclosure: The FT has been a major client for the last few months, and I’ve been delivering workshops for them in partnership with Neil Perkin and eConsultancy]