• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, December 18, 2006

Beginning on January 2nd, the Wall Street Journal Web site will offer an online stock-tracking feature that will compensate for some of the reductions in market information resulting from the smaller paper size, which will also become effective on January 2nd. In addition to providing a valuable new tool that could draw substantial traffic to its Web site, the Journal's move symbolizes the shifting balance between print and online media.

Stock data will appear in an area of the WSJ Web site called the "market data center." The feature will be accessible to users who don't subscribe to the Web site. This open approach appears to be designed to boost traffic and new subscriptions to the Web site. In addition to appearing on the main WSJ Web site, the feature will be available at its own Web address, www.wsjmarkets.com. The Wall Street Journal online had 788,000 paying subscribers at the end of the third quarter.

The Journal cut down the size of its print newspaper to save money on production costs. Formerly listing about 4,500 stocks, as of January 2nd the paper edition will list just 1,500. The Journal's decision to migrate stock data to the Internet, where it can be updated more frequently, is an elegant use of virtual publishing to achieve cost efficiencies.