It doesn’t. Except when it does.

Contrary to News Corp. (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch’s comments earlier in the week, Dow Jones will not be charging customers who subscribe to both its Web and print versions a weekly fee to read the paper on its iPhone or BlackBerry apps.

But if you’re only subscribing to one version? That’ll be a buck a week, starting Oct. 24. The Journal will also start charging mobile-only users $2 a week, which is essentially the same price as a Web-only subscription.

That second charge makes some sense to me. The Journal has always said that it would start charging for the apps it makes for Apple’s (AAPL) and Research in Motion’s (RIMM) handsets. Right now these apps are gratis, which means you can either pay the Journal to read it in print or on the Web, or read it on your iPhone and pay zilch. That had to change at some point.

But while I have to be a tiny bit delicate here–Dow Jones owns this Web site, and I still have some aversion to insulting my employers in public–I don’t see how dunking paying customers a second time makes sense.

I do understand some of the impulse. Publishers of all stripes seem to think that while charging for content on the Web is tough, people are happy to pay for something delivered wirelessly. I think that many publishers are going to be very disappointed when they try this out in practice, but that’s another story.

And I also know that News Corp. has steadily been pushing Dow Jones to raise its subscription prices for the WSJ since it acquired the company, and this strategy sort of dovetails with that.

But seems to me that if I am paying for information, I will expect to consume it wherever I am, at the same price. And you’re starting to hear some publishers say the same thing–see Variety’s comments about subscription plans today in PaidContent.

I don’t actually pay for my WSJ subscription; my employers, who, I should stress, are truly excellent people, have hooked me up–so maybe I’ve got this wrong. Or maybe it’s merely a marketing issue: If you jack up my WSJ subscription and tell me you’re throwing in access to the mobile app for free, I might be okay with it.

But tell me you’re charging me an additional fee to read it on the go and it will stick in my craw. Let’s see if the paper’s paying subscribers feel the same way.

That’s the unsettling story that comes out of the Times’s explanation of the incident, in which an untold number of the sites’ visitors were served up with an ad promoting malware.

The attack, which the Times says was also directed at other, unnamed news organizations, is worrisome enough. But the fact that the culprits behind it essentially walked right into the front door of the New York Times (NYT) and conned the paper into distributing the fraudulent ads is really scary.

The short version: The Times says that someone who “masqueraded as a national advertiser” bought ad space on the site, which is visited by some 45 million people a month from the U.S. alone. The unnamed buyer “provided seemingly legitimate product advertising for a week.”

UPDATE: The Times says the fake ads were for Internet phone service Vonage.

Then, over the weekend, the culprits started churning out the malware. The Times has issued a statement explaining some of what happened, which I’m reprinting at the bottom of this post (the paper also has a consumer guide to help you protect yourself from malware, viruses and other Web unpleasantness).

But the statement is a bit confusing and seems to indicate that the paper was compromised by an ad network it used to sell remnant space on the site. That’s what I thought might have happened at first, and that’s what the paper’s tech staff thought as well–note the reference to “suspending all third-party advertisements on the site.”

But I double-checked with Times spokeswoman Diane McNulty, who confirmed that that paper’s own staff had sold the fake ad.

How could this happen? I don’t know–anyone with Web buying experience want to weigh in? But I do know that it’s not the first time bogus ad buyers have bought space directly from publishers.

Earlier this year, I wrote about an incident in which someone pretended to buy ads on behalf of Hyundai. And that story elicited a response from an ad exec at a very big, very well-known Web publisher, who told me that in 2008, his employer had received a large order on behalf of a different auto company, and ran some of the ads before figuring out they were fakes.

Here’s the Times’s explanation:

As you know, over the weekend, nytimes.com was the victim of a malware attack that targeted several news organizations. The culprit masqueraded as a national advertiser and provided seemingly legitimate product advertising for a week. Over the weekend, the ad being served up was switched so that an intrusive message, claiming to be a virus warning from the reader’s computer, appeared.

As soon as we were made aware of the situation, we took aggressive steps, suspending all third-party advertisements on the site. We posted information about the attack on our home page and directed readers on what to do if they encountered the malicious code. There is additional information posted today on our homepage and our Gadgetwise personal technology blog.

We now know how it occurred and have taken steps to prevent a similar situation from happening.

That’s the message Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Chief Executive Janet L. Robinson tried to deliver to the Globe’s employees this morning, reports…the Boston Globe.

Given that the Times engaged in some white-knuckled negotiating to get the paper’s unions to agree to big pay cuts and other concessions, repeatedly said that the Globe is bleeding red ink and has extended the bidding deadline for prospective Globe buyers, that seems like a hard message to deliver. Especially if you’re delivering it to crabby, ink-stained wretches.

The Globe, however, says the meeting was “largely civil.” But not entirely:

Today’s meeting, which lasted just over an hour, marked the first time Times Co. executives have met with Globe employees in more than a year. A common complaint among Globe employees was that the most senior Times Co. executives did not travel to Boston for a face-to-face meeting with employees at which they might have explained the paper’s financial condition and made the case for sacrifices.

The meeting today was contentious at times, as classified sales employee Jeanne Shimkus drew a smattering of applause when she attacked the Times Co. executives for imposing cuts on employees and questioned their credibility. “I have no respect for anything you say. And I don’t believe a word you say,” Shimkus said.

Sulzberger quickly moved on to the next question. “If you have no respect for anything I say, and you don’t believe anything I say, then we don’t have the basis for a conversation and a dialogue,” he told her.

Goldman Sachs (GS), which is running the auction for the Times, had originally told bidders to submit their offers by July 8. But as of last night, that deadline has been pushed back, with no new deadline to replace it, reports…the Boston Globe.

The Globe doesn’t know what the extension means, but it does have a concise roundup of potential bidders:

Three local businessmen have surfaced as potential Globe bidders: Stephen Pagliuca, co-owner of the Boston Celtics and managing director at the Bain Capital private equity firm; Jack Connors, a former advertising executive and chairman of Partners HealthCare; and Stephen Taylor, a former Globe executive and member of the family that sold the newspaper to the Times Co. for $1.1 billion in 1993. Connors and Pagliuca, who initially were considering separate bids, requested and were given permission by Goldman Sachs to join forces and submit a common bid.

The other big question. How much will the winner end up paying for the paper? A lot less than what the Times paid for it 16 years ago, obviously.

The Times has already told bidders that they should expect to assume $59 million in pension liabilities if they walk away with the paper, but beyond that, it’s anyone guess. The paper’s own David Carr went through this exercise last month and elicited guesstimates that ranged from $1 to $250 million.

That’s one takeaway you can draw from a new study commissioned by an Internet publishing trade group, which concludes, astonishingly, that Internet publishing is an important and vibrant industry.

The data are being served up via the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which tells us the advertising-supported Web industry “directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs.”

Note the “advertising-supported” modifier in the above paragraph, because that’s the real thrust of the IAB’s study/press release: The trade group is trying to get Congress and Washington to let members like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL regulate themselves when it comes to hot-button issues like behavioral targeting.

Hence this quote from IAB boss Randall Rothenberg: “By understanding the total contribution of the Internet to the U.S. economy, we can more accurately assess the impact of potential legislative changes on the Internet’s operations, particularly the consequences of any actions that would alter ad-supported business models.”

OK. Fine. But regulation is tomorrow’s problem. Today, let us celebrate the fact that some of us have jobs! And also, according to the IAB, we’re providing the following:

• Universal access to an almost unlimited source of information
• Increased productivity (output per unit of capital or labor, or increased consumer utility at a lower cost)
• Innovation in business practices, consumer behavior, commerce and media
• Empowerment of entrepreneurs to start small businesses, find customers and grow
• Environmental benefits derived from saving natural resources lowering pollution through the reduced use of petroleum-based fuels and paper

Cool, right? And all this time I thought I was just blogging. You’re welcome! And please keep reading.

[Image credit: respres]

It can’t say that anymore.

The Post says revenue at its flagship paper was down 22 percent in the last quarter and that print ad revenue was down 33 percent. That’s worse than the declines of 13 percent and 21 percent it posted in the previous quarter. And it’s lousier than the poor results the Times posted last month, when it reported that overall ad revenue had dropped 27 percent.

The same holds for the Post’s online business: Even in the good old days, it wasn’t growing fast enough to counter the decline at the print business. But now, online is declining, too.

Web revenue was down eight percent, because the classifieds business has been decimated. Online display ads, at least, were up a meager three percent. But last quarter, display ads were up 10 percent and the overall business was still growing five percent.

As usual, the real difference between the Post and the Times isn’t their performance but their corporate structure: The Times is pure-play media business that’s now choking on debt, while the Post is an education company (Kaplan) that happens to own a newspaper, which makes all of these grim results much easier to bear.

Here’s a survey of the rest of the Post’s business lines. Click on the image to enlarge.

Polaroid’s $150 PoGo is an inkless printer that churns out 2×3-inch photos sent to it via Bluetooth-enabled devices or from plugged-in digital cameras.

Just this year, Polaroid Corp. said it would cease production of its “magical” cameras. But this week, I had the chance to test the company’s latest attempt at relevance in our digital world: the $150 Polaroid PoGo (thenewinstant.com). The PoGo, which stands for Polaroid-on-the-Go, is an inkless printer that churns out 2×3-inch photos sent to it via Bluetooth devices like cellphones or from plugged-in digital cameras. It uses technology created by ZINK (Zero Ink) Imaging Inc. to activate paper-embedded dye crystals, creating a new kind of photo magic. The PoGo will be in stores on July 6.

Cool Factor

This device’s ZINK Technology gives it a cool factor that will leave friends scratching their heads over how such a small device can print without ink (technical details about the 100 billion heat-activated dye crystals on each sheet of paper can be found at zink.com/technology). Photos that I printed from a 10-megapixel digital camera looked sharp and colorful. And some people may use this Polaroid gadget as a solution for freeing images that would otherwise likely remain stuck in a mobile device’s memory.

But four major problems with the PoGo make it a no-go: It isn’t quite small and light enough to be truly portable; its battery life is poor; its prints are half the size of normal photos; and image quality when printing from mobile devices is unimpressive — though this can be attributed to the low-resolution images taken with and stored on these devices rather than the printer itself. For roughly the same price, you could buy a photo printer that produces better quality 4×6-inch or larger prints.

The PoGo works only with ZINK Photo Paper, which costs between 30 cents and 40 cents a page, depending on whether you buy a 10-sheet pack for $3.99 or a 30-sheet pack for $9.99. (Later this year, a 100-sheet pack of ZINK photo paper will be available for $29.99.) The PoGo comes with 10 pieces of this paper, which is coated with a waterproof, tear-proof, smudge-proof, semi-gloss finish. You can peel the backs of these 2×3 prints to stick them to things, though not in the same way Post-its can be stuck and removed (they leave a gooey film — I learned the hard way).

A Device With Weight

Surprisingly, Polaroid is touting the PoGo’s portability; it arrived in a custom-made jeans pocket to demonstrate the device’s pocket-sized shape. But at over 8 ounces, this thing was heavier and measured larger than Apple’s (AAPL) biggest 160-gigabyte iPod Classic. It even weighed more than a bulky point-and-shoot Kodak (EK) camera I recently tested, discouraging me from bringing it along when I went out.

A chart on polaroid.com/pogo/us/comp.html tells whether or not your mobile device is Bluetooth-compatible with the PoGo. Two out of the three devices that I tried worked: A new Motorola (MOT) Z6C and Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Curve were compatible, though an almost-two-year-old Motorola Razr V3 wasn’t.

Each mobile device needed only one initial “pairing,” or setup, with the PoGo before it sent photos. The device used a simple method of sending photos via Bluetooth that generally involved selecting a photo and telling the mobile device to send it to the PoGo. It usually took a few seconds for the send to go through.

The PoGo doesn’t have a display to tell users when images are received, when to load more paper or if the battery is running low. Instead, it uses two indicator lights that glow or pulse in green, orange or red colors. Each light means something different, such as whether or not the PoGo is ready to print or if it has a paper jam, but I usually had to refer to the user’s manual to figure out what each light meant.

Quiet Printer

The PoGo is rather quiet while printing, making a soft whirring sound as its thermal print head turns on and zaps dye crystals, which are embedded in the ZINK photo paper. These small pieces of paper are stored in and printed from a holding space inside the device, which saves users from opening a tray and loading paper before each print-out. However, the PoGo can hold a maximum of only 10 sheets at once. Some images printed in 45 seconds and a few took about twice that long, but most were done in about one minute — counting from when I pressed Send on a mobile device to when the print finished.

I hooked a Sony (SNE) Cyber-shot DSC-W170 to the PoGo via a USB cord and used the camera’s built-in PictBridge technology to print from the camera, following directions on the camera’s display screen. I even printed four of the same photo at once after adjusting the quantity category in a menu, though this seemed to slow the printing process a bit.

While prints from my grandmother’s Polaroid camera couldn’t be touched until about a minute after printing, the small PoGo prints come out dry to the touch. I held one under the kitchen faucet to test its waterproof claim, and the colors held up without running. These prints are borderless, which looks good but seems like the only sensible option with such small paper. Images from the digital camera looked dramatically better than those taken by mobile devices’ 1.3-megapixel or two-megapixel cameras.

Short Battery Life

The PoGo’s battery life wore out quickly, especially for a device that is advertised as portable. In one test, after I unplugged my fully charged PoGo and used it for about 40 minutes to print 16 photos — half from a Bluetooth-connected cellphone and the other half from a USB-connected digital camera — its battery indicator glowed a steady orange, meaning the PoGo was running low on power. This is about right, considering Polaroid claims that a fully charged battery will last for 15 prints. (It takes about 2.5 hours to fully charge the PoGo.)

I really liked the quality of the photos that PoGo printed from my digital camera — in fact, I’m planning to enclose a few small PoGo photos in cards that I send to friends and family members. But the PoGo’s awkward size, bad battery life and small prints make it a tough sell. I’m afraid the PoGo falls short in too many categories to be a practical gadget. Teens might like this device for printing photos from their cellphones that they can stick on lockers or books. And who knows — maybe a grandmother somewhere will buy one of these gadgets to create a little Polaroid magic for her grandchild.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com