The Steinman Enterprises community effort may seem like a small project to larger outfits but it’s significant beyond being a test of Press+ technology. Instead of sinking money into a DIY effort, costs for the online site for the Intelligencer Journal-Lancaster New Era were limited to employee time, mostly Schrieber’s, so anything the company makes will be profit. The split in this case is 75-80 percent of net revenue, with Journalism Online getting 20-25 percent. Or as Schreiber puts it, “as long as we don’t lose substantial readership, whatever subscriptions flow through Press+ will be additional revenue.” His revenue estimates range from $50,000 to as high as $150,000.

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It’s also a carefully thought out test of reader sensitivity to charges. Obits are unique content that can’t be accessed easily any other way but only make up 6 percent of LancasterOnline’s pageviews, which Schreiber describes as “a significant sample, but not one that, in the event of massive rejection, would cripple our website traffic.” It’s also designed to make sure mourners from out of town don’t run into a barrier. [Poynter’s Bill Mitchell goes into the metrics that figured into seven as the cut-off point and some other issues.]

In a thoughtful e-mail after we spoke by phone, Schreiber, who is often asked what comes after obits, explained how his thinking has evolved in the seven-plus months that he has been working with Journalism Online:

“Early on in our planning, the Financial Times was the only well-known publication using a metered approach. The opinion was widespread in the industry that the FT’s success was based on its unique financial content. So we chose to meter obituaries because they are unique content for us.  Readers cannot easily access them elsewhere.

... Now I have come to believe that, in communities like ours, editors do not need to decide what content has unique value for their readers. Readers make that decision for themselves as they click through breaking news, local sports, local politics, local business, local entertainment. If we can consistently provide the thorough, accurate news coverage of our community at what readers think reasonable cost, we’ll open a new revenue stream.”

Press+: Schreiber expects LancasterOnline’s Press+ offering to be followed in a couple of weeks by the two MediaNews projects that have already been publicized: Chico, CA-based Enterprise-Record and the York Daily Record, which is across the river from Lancaster. Press+ is the consumer face of Journalism Online, founded last year by Steve Brill and Gordon Crovitz; last month, News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) invested in the start up.