FT.com will tomorrow begin giving free site subscriptions to college students via Facebook, the site has told us. The news site will launch an app that gives users a PIN code which can be redeemed for an annual premium sub. The app will only be available to those users who are identified at the social site as students and the subscriptions will expire after 12 months but can be renewed, again for free, for up to four years, which, at current prices, makes it worth £396 ($436; 476 euros). The app can be shared with users’ student friends, will appear in their newsfeeds and will place a badge on their profiles.

It’s not a significant strategy shift as such, and indeed it’s questionable whether it will bring many other than business and politics students to the site, but the idea is to find future subscribers. And it moves FT.com further away from the “one-size-fits-all” subscription strategy the site had before its new access model freed up more articles in October, publisher Ien Cheng told me...lots more on PCUK here.