[Update below] In view of the country is going to the polls on Saturday, Malaysiakini has decided to make its website free beginning today.

From 3pm today, readers will be able to access all Malaysiakini reports and articles without having to log in. The site will be locked again on March 10, two days after the general election.

As compensation to Malaysiakini ’s existing subscribers, one additional week will be added to their subscription periods.

"We hope that voters will be able to access independent news so that they can make an informed decision on polling day," said Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran in announcing the decision.

malaysiakini versi bahasa malaysia "Our Bahasa Malaysia section went free last week, and now with campaigning into its final lap, we’ve decided to make our articles in the English and Chinese language sections free as well."

Chandran said the move is in line with Malaysiakini ’s vision, which among others include the support for ‘the development of freedom of speech, social justice and democracy in Malaysia’.

"Democracy is about voters acquiring sufficient knowledge to make an informed choice. By making Malaysiakini available to all, we want to play our part in helping Malaysians exercise their democratic right," added editor-in-chief Steven Gan.

During this free period, Malaysiakini will allow its ‘news and views’ to be re-posted in blogs and other websites as well as to be printed and photocopied for distribution.

Reaching out to all

Malaysiakini was launched on Nov 20, 1999 - the nomination day for the 1999 general elections.

The site reached 100,000 unique visitors per day within eight months. However, with the ‘dotcom’ bust in 2000 and Internet advertising rapidly drying up, Malaysiakini was forced to make the drastic choice of charging our readers in 2002.

"Going subscription-based has been a very tough sell, but it has paid off over the long term," said Chandran .

Malaysiakini earned just under RM1 million in subscription revenues in 2007, which helped towards meeting the website’s operational expenses.

"It is this income from our subscribers that allows Malaysiakini to be independent," stressed Chandran.

In 2003, Malaysiakini launched its Malay section which is followed by its Chinese version two years later. Last year, Malaysiakini.tv went live.

Last month, Malaysiakini went Tamil through MalaysiaIndru - the result of a partnership with magazine publisher Semparuthi Publications.

Growth in visitors

Gan said Malaysiakini would be focusing its efforts on developing the website further to incorporate the latest innovations in connectivity and features besides strengthening its news section.

"We are aggressively reinvesting all our income into expanding Malaysiakini so as to better serve our readers," said Gan.

Malaysiakini’s readership has grown rapidly in recent months on the back of public protests and the VK Lingam video scandal.

Since the general election was announced, Malaysiakini is being read by an average of 180,000 unique readers and over 30,000 video downloads per day.

"We hope that our readers will continue to support Malaysiakini in the years to come. Apart from subscriptions, we will continue to welcome donations from our supporters," said Chandran.

For readers who are new to Malaysiakini, they may want to visit WayBackMachine for a sample of the online website’s stories over the past eight years.

UPDATE: Since Malaysiakini went free at 3pm today, the traffic to the website has surged so high that it almost crashed our servers. We have decided to move Malaysiakini videos to YouTube in order to free up our bandwidth.

Malaysiakini will continue to closely monitor the traffic to the website in the coming days so that immediate remedial action can be taken. We will try our best to ensure that readers can continue to access Malaysiakini at all times.