I got an email today from Domaining.com, the popular domain name news aggregator.

Hello Kevin Muldoon,

A quick note to tell you the Domaining.com membership is no longer free!
All has a end, it’s now time for us to charge an annual fee.
It will help us pay our bills but also secure our site where new exciting services for registered domainers should be available soon.
As a result free accounts have been closed today, you’ll no longer receive our newsletter.
You are invited to sign up again if you are serious about domaining.
Ah I forgot, don’t panic, we are only asking a $35 annual fee.

Best wishes for the new year,

Francois Carrillo
Domaining.com

It wasn’t a website I read regularly so this change doesn’t really concern me. However, I was very surprised to see them adapt this model. As Reece points out :

Reducing the advertising rates seems to be the best choice. Instead of $100/day to have a sponsored headline, cut it to $50/day. Instead of $1400/week for a banner ad, make it $500/week. The banner advertising prices ($1400/week) is simply too hgh — it wasn’t selling during the good times and we’re now in a recession, so it’ll have to be cut that much more…

I have to agree. A lot of Domainers do have more money than some webmasters out there but they aren’t stupid and $1,400 a week is crazy. If they weren’t selling ads at these prices they should have dropped them.

I wish them the best with their new model but I wouldn’t be surprised if they reverted to an ad based model in a few months time as $35 is pretty steep for information which can be found elsewhere on the web.