At a time when many media outlets are struggling to find profits online, Brian Livingston has quietly built WindowsSecrets.com by avoiding the popular combination of blog posts and advertising — opting instead for an email newsletter and a revenue model that Radiohead would love.

Actually, his Seattle company has been letting people choose how much to pay for its Windows Secrets newsletter since long before the alternative rock band made headlines for offering its “In Rainbows” album in a similar way.

The name-your-own-price approach isn’t new, and online publishers caution that people won’t be willing to pay for all types of content. But as the economy cuts into advertising budgets, the experiences of Livingston and others may provide lessons for newspapers and bloggers seeking to build viable businesses in online media.

It works for Livingston in part because Windows Secrets’ content is highly specialized — offering inside information and news for advanced users and administrators of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.

Livingston

“If they’re at the point where they’re going to give us any money at all, they really want us to succeed,” Livingston said. “They want the newsletter to keep going. They want us to be able to pay for good writers who can dig up information for them.”

People can subscribe to the premium version of Windows Secrets for essentially any amount, although the sign-up page presents them with suggested options of $15, $25 or $35 for a one-year subscription, or $100 for a lifetime subscription.

The free version offers basic Windows news and tips. The premium version includes work by veteran columnists, software reviews, analysis of Microsoft’s security patches, and additional access to archived content on the site.

Subscription models in general require publishers to think about the specific value of the information they’re providing, said Mark Anderson, publisher of the Friday Harbor-based Strategic News Service technology newsletter. He cited cases in which his newsletter has predicted major economic news and big corporate mergers, starting with IBM’s acquisition of Lotus Software in 1995.

 “Someone could have made a killing knowing that,” Anderson said.

Strategic News Service charges fixed prices — $595 per year for a standard subscription and $895 for a premium version with extra interactive features such as email access to the subjects of its articles. But for some newsletters, Anderson said he also sees the value in the pay-what-you-want model such as the one Windows Secrets uses.

“It’s certainly a good thing to do in a down economy,” Anderson said. “You’re maximizing the number of readers.”

Altogether, the Windows Secrets Newsletter claims more than 400,000 subscribers to the free and paid versions, assembled in large part by merging with other technology newsletters. The WindowsSecrets.com site gets about 1 million page views a month.

The company is profitable, keeping a close eye on expenses, Livingston said. Windows Secrets employs four people, in addition to him, and pays a stable of experienced writers and editors for their regular contributions.

Livingston, 56, an author and former  contributing editor to InfoWorld technology magazine, learned to program FORTRAN 4 on punch cards in 1968, as a high-school junior in a special San Diego State University summer program. He was immersed in Windows as a consultant to financial advisory firm Lazard Freres & Co. in 1990, overseeing its shift from DOS.

He launched his newsletter business in April 2003, after InfoWorld laid off all of its outside writers. He stumbled upon the contribution model when he and an early webmaster couldn’t agree how much to charge for his newsletter. As it turned out, more people than he expected chose to contribute more than the cheapest option.

The Windows Secrets newsletter is timed for Thursday publication because it allows for enough time to analyze and make recommendations about Microsoft’s security fixes, which are released on the second Tuesday of each month.

Other content ranges from Windows tips to investigative pieces such as a recent story uncovering CNN’s questionable use of peer-to-peer technology, accessing users’ internet bandwidth, to help distribute video of the presidential inauguration. Livingston called it an example of how a small news operation can do tough investigative journalism.

“There is so much dirt in the computer industry that we’ll never find it all,” he said. “I consider the computer industry to be one of the worst customer-service disappointments in the entire economy. When you think about products that don’t work, products that have bad security, it’s just endemic.”

Windows Secrets was formed in 2004 by the combination of Livingston’s “Brian’s Buzz on Windows” and Woody Leonhard’s “Woody’s Windows Watch,” newsletter. In 2006, Windows Secrets merged with Fred Langa’s LangaList newsletter. Last year, it merged with Ian "Gizmo" Richards’ Support Alert Newsletter. Langa and Richards both write for Windows Secrets.

Leonhard, who also continues to write for Windows Secrets, said last week that Livingston’s business model is one of the reasons he decided to merge Woody’s Windows Watch with Livingston’s newsletter.

“I think Brian’s business model will be viable for a long, long time – the ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ approach really appeals to me,” Leonhard said via email. He said the approach “shows a certain faith in the readership that’s hard to beat.”