Back in July, we asked readers how much they would be willing to pay for The New York Times online, after a survey from NYTimes.com revealed that potential charges could be as high as $5 a month.

A whopping 44 percent of our readers responded that they wouldn’t pay anything to read the Times‘ content, which actually is a little bit better than both the national average of people willing to pay for online content (about 50 percent), and the percentage of random people in SoHo willing to open their wallets (63 percent), according to other polls.

But now that Arthur Sulzberger has actual — albeit far off — plans to put up a metered pay wall for the Times in 2011, we wondered if anyone’s tune has changed. So now the question isn’t how much you’re willing to pay, but if you’ll pay at all. Let us know!

Would You Pay to Read The New York Times Online?(trends)

Previously: Would You Pay To Read NYTimes.com?, New York Magazine Poll: Newspapers and New Media Neck and Neck, But No One Willing To Pay, New Yorkers Less Willing To Pay For Content Than Rest of Country

All things in moderation is an adage that is often applied to, say, drinking (particularly around the holidays!) but could also perhaps be recommended to the NYT.com and their tendency to launch blogs on just about every subject possible. The most recent addition to their vast array of offerings is Proof, a blog about “alcohol and the American Life.” Here’s part of the official description:”For the past 10,000 years or so, wherever humans have gathered, there has been alcohol. Some never touch the stuff. But most do…In “Proof,” contributors consider the charms, powers and dangers of drink, and the role it plays in their lives.”

Okay, whatever, we’re all for the creation of writing spaces, but today’s post, which is currently making the blogging and Twitter rounds, appears to be the latest “proof” that when the Times attempts “this is how we think you live now” pieces they are often slightly off the mark. Behold.

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Anyone curious about what the future of online newpapers might look like need only turn to the NYT.com right now. The homepage is currently running its usual layout of stories, but in lieu of a front page photo is a live feed of Barack Obama announcing his new national security team (Hillary’s official!). Could a NYT online television channel be far off? We imagine that at some point in the near future this is exactly the sort of meshing between TV and newspaper we will see everywhere.

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There’s been plenty of talk the last few weeks about a post-election viewer slump both online and on television. Over at 538.com Nate Silver has taken his pollster powers and applied them to politically-oriented websites to see how these sites are faring now that the election has concluded. The results are interesting.

Turns out that TheAtlantic.com, which recently redesigned both its magazine and website, has experienced an upswing in traffic (retaining 125% of its pre-election traffic), so has Drudge and to a lesser extent The Huffington Post. Meanwhile the NYT.com is more or less breaking even while sites such as Slate and Politico have dropped and are only retaining 50-60% of their traffic. Silver explains how he reached these numbers, and what the caveats to his results might be, here.

We’ve noted before on a number of occasions how the NYT.com occasionally runs these big banner ads that take up a third of the page (and are generally quite distracting, but in this economic media environment we’re pretty willing to put up with whatever it takes). Most noticeable are the big Mac Ads featuring a walking and talking John Hodgeman (we were once told there NYT.com placement was result of a lunch between Steve Jobs and ‘Pinch’ Sultzberger). Well it looks like Mac has expanded their business to include WSJ.com, which we noticed this morning was running a similar banner ad today. A first we think and perhaps even more noticeable since the paper itself only began running front page pictures last year.
* UPDATE: The WSJ.com informs us it’s not the first time, in fact today is the fifth time this year they’ve run the ad.

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Turns out President-Elect Obama isn’t just selling newspapers he’s selling magazines and websites, too! The New York Post is reporting that Time and Newsweek, both of whom rushed election issues to the newsstands following Obama’s win on Tuesday, are selling out in metropolitan markets and are in the process of printing extra copies.

By late yesterday, Time, which published more than 100,000 extra copies, had already gone back to press, while Newsweek, which also added 100,000 to its print run, was very close to doing the same.

Meanwhile, on the Internets the Web experienced its highest traffic volume ever (ever is currently defined as the last three years, which is when the measuring of online traffic began). According to the Times “8.5 million visitors per minute clicked onto news Web sites worldwide from 11 p.m. to midnight…Several online news sites, including those produced by MSNBC, CNN and ABC News, said that Tuesday ranked as their most-visited day ever.” For some sites including the NYT.com and Washingtonpost.com traffic continued to surge post-election with both sites setting all time traffic records on Wednesday.