Have you been following the news about the problems with the paywall, that the NYTimes reportedly paid $40-50 million to design and code? It can be surmounted with four lines of Javascript. As the Nieman Journalism Lab article says, "It barely even qualifies as a hack."
Beside that, the paywall is porous by design. The NYTimes wants the ad revenue and Google that comes with social network traffic.
I have mixed feelings. I want journalism to survive. For that to happen, there has to be money in it. In some ways I admire NYT's sheer gutsiness in putting forth a model that gives content away for free while making others pay hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of reading as much content as they want all in one place rather than an article at a time. It's a tricky balancing act.
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Date: 2011-03-26 11:24 pm (UTC)Beside that, the paywall is porous by design. The NYTimes wants the ad revenue and Google that comes with social network traffic.
I have mixed feelings. I want journalism to survive. For that to happen, there has to be money in it. In some ways I admire NYT's sheer gutsiness in putting forth a model that gives content away for free while making others pay hundreds of dollars a year for the privilege of reading as much content as they want all in one place rather than an article at a time. It's a tricky balancing act.
Links:
Nieman Journalism Lab article.
Bloomberg article. I especially like Dan Ariely's observations near the end of the article, and not just because I've met and like the guy.
The Alternet article that's linked to everywhere.
And a good article on The Street, again, especially at the end (on page 2).