Profit is a Friday Thing

Weekly email service, The Friday Thing, is claiming to be one of the first email magazines in the world to have become profitable, just six months after its launch.

The irreverent email service, which comments on news, culture and current affairs, says 8,000 of its 40,000 readers have agreed to pay a £10 a year subscription.

Paul Carr, editor of Friday Thing, puts the magazine's commercial success down to the quality of its editorial team, which includes writers from The Guardian, The Observer, The 11 O'clock Show and Smack The Pony.

"The fact that we operate solely via email means we live and die by the quality of our writing," Carr said in a statement.

"With this in mind, we decided not to spend any money on traditional marketing activities but, rather, to devote as much of our limited budget as possible to developing content that speaks for itself."

According to Carr, 90 per cent of The Friday Thing's new users come from word-of-mouth recommendation.

The site, which has been free since its launch in July 2001, will be subscription only from 1 February.