Free access to Frontiersman.com returns

MAT-SU — You asked for it, you got it! Free access is set to return to the most visited website in the Mat-Su Borough.

On Tuesday, the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman will partner with Google to transition its website to a different, less-intrusive paywall that will allow easier — and free — access to readers. After experimenting for the past year with a subscription model for paid access to Frontiersman.com, a course change on our end means a return to unlimited access.

“The goal is customer service,” said Frontiersman Publisher Mark Kelsey. “Customers told us they found the subscription log-in service complicated, and we were devoting hours of staff time providing customer service for what we have come to see as a flawed system.”

Here’s how our new unlimited free access will work when the system is implemented on Tuesday: The first few sentences of a news story will be shown and readers will need to answer a multiple-choice question from Google Consumer Surveys to access the rest of the story. More than 90 percent of surveys are a single, simple question, like “Which of these vegetables do you most associate with summertime grilling?”

Businesses hire Google to create these online surveys. The business that contracted the survey research gets completion rates that are more than 15 percent better than the polling industry standard, and thus more accurate data, Google says.

The surveys are not about mining personal data or profiling for direct advertising. In fact, no personal information at all is required, just a few seconds of time in exchange for unlimited free website access.

Under this new model, the Frontiersman’s portion of revenue received from Google for the surveys will help offset the costs associated with operating Frontiersman.com.

Frontiersman Managing Editor Heather Resz noted that the return to unlimited website access has the added benefit of helping the newspaper fulfill its mission to provide news to the community.

“The Frontiersman has been the Valley’s primary source for local news since 1947,” Resz said. “Allowing open access to the website again will ensure that we are able to keep as many people as possible informed about the news that matters to them.”

This change to expand access to the local news found at Frontiersman.com won’t affect the instant and free access readers already have to our other social media outlets, including the Frontiersman’s popular Facebook page, Twitter feed and Instagram.