Taking a cue from all those kids working for him over at MySpace, Australian immortal Rupert Murdoch imparted a new design for the Wall Street Journal online. The new site, which goes live tomorrow, includes more features for the paid memberships accounts, and restricted access for the plebes who choose not to fork over their dough.

Sure, it was always possible to read WSJ articles that were technically membership only, but now if you wanted to say, comment on any of the pieces and engage in a spirited debate with other individuals, you need the premium membership account. There is also a network function for the premies; so it will be just like MySpace, except that you will be forced to use your real name and identity, as verified against your billing address, on the site. The concept behind this pulling-back of the Internet's anonymous curtain being that the news sites where anyone is allowed to comment under a pseudonym (*ahem*) leave themselves open for baseless, personal attacks.

Which is sort of what the internet is for, yeah? The lack of identity is the most inviting aspect of commenting, and taking that away from people while attaching everything short of their social security number to their ideas on Palin or IAG, will likely make many of the premium members anxious.

If they were smart, the WSJ.com design team might enact a policy where paying members created pseudonyms and avatars that the site's moderators could connect to a real person's address, but which would remain hidden to the general public. That way the profile of bIllOreillySUCKsmYballs69 could never become a potentially career-killing move for Keith Olbermann.