Andrew Pollack's Blog

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Subscription News Sites

By Andrew Pollack on 12/01/2003 at 10:41 AM EST

Have you noticed more and more that the on-line newspaper sites are requiring 'free registration' before you can view their articles? In some cases, they get quite intrusive. Forbes (a site I will not link to) even attempts to load software settings into your browser. I've set my own home page to "Google News" -- the cool thing about that is it that similar stories are grouped together. When I hit a site that requires a registration to read, I hit the back button and get the same story somewhere else.

Using your content to leverage registrations will not work if your content is not unique and valuable. The very incestuous nature of the news industry works against them. Like the music industry, the newspaper industry is suffering from the slow realization that they've been in the paper distribution business (plastic in the case of the music industry) and not the content business. The value is migrating slowly to the reporter and away from the distributor, just as in the case of the music industry where the change is more noticeable.


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My favorite newspaper annoyance...By Rob McDonagh on 06/23/2004 at 11:21 AM EDT
...is when they ask for demographic information instead of registration. Like where you are, when you were born, male/female, etc. I always claim to be a 104 yr old woman from Alaska. Hey, if they're wasting MY time, I'm gonna waste THEIRS...
Rob...By Bruce Elgort on 06/23/2004 at 11:21 AM EDT
You are looking pretty old lately. Considering I couldn't see your bald head under that hat your wore all week in Ft. Lauderdale ;-)


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