• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, May 2, 2006

The Web has long offered consumers a mix of free, ad-supported content with subscription content. But as the online ad market continues to grow, it seems that more and more high quality content is becoming available free of charge.

This week alone, ABC started offering free streams of some of its most highly acclaimed shows--including "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives." These streams are accompanied by ads that, for now, consumers can't avoid by pressing the fast-forward button.

In addition, Napster, once the poster child for illicit distribution of free music, bowed a legal free sampling program. The offering--blessed by the music industry--allows users to stream tracks for free, but only up to five times.

And Dow Jones, long held up as the prototypical example of a paid online newspaper, has once again opened the online version of the Wall Street Journal to the Web for free, for 10 days, in hopes that people will try it and sign up.

Of course, free trials aren't new; they're one of the oldest marketing techniques in the book. Yet, offering samples of entertainment or news isn't necessarily the same as giving out, say, free shampoo. For one thing, there is so much news, music and video available on TV, the radio and the Web for free, it's unclear how many people will ever pay for such content.

Dow Jones said that its two previous "open house" initiatives since October 2004 have resulted in more than 10,000 new subscribers. While that's impressive, it's just a small proportion of the site's 760,000 paying readers.

Regardless, these free trials offer more than a chance for consumers to test products. They also give advertisers the opportunity to place ads around content that consumers clearly want. And those are the sorts of initiatives the Internet needs if it's to capture more than its current 5 percent of the total media spend.