Jason Unger

Old Media Still Doesn't Get New Media

Posted by junger - 11/30/07 at 02:11:44 pm

Old media news publishers are trying to lock their information away from search engines and, in the process, shooting themselves in the foot.

Long story short, a bunch of newspaper and magazine types want to have more control over how search engines index their content. Basically, they want Google to stop promoting and linking to their content.

Why wouldn't the AP want Google News to display their headlines and summaries with a link to the article?

It's free traffic! These news sites are getting users pointed to them that they may have never seen before.

What are they expecting when they post a news story: that no one will see it? That only people who go to their homepage will be able to click to it?

These people are just like the kids who post pictures of themselves on MySpace and facebook and think that no one will see them.

Wake up: when you put something on the Internet, you can't stop people from seeing it and using it.

Why would you even want to stop people from seeing your content? Unless you're targeting a specific, qualified audience (which the AP isn't), there's no reason to block your content from the masses.

Tom Curley, the AP's chief executive, said the news cooperative spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually covering the world, and that its employees risk often their lives doing so. Technologies such as ACAP, he said, are important to protect AP's original news reports from sites that distribute them without permission.

If you don't want your content freely available, then don't make it freely available. Create a TimesSelect to limit distribution (and then watch your numbers soar when you get rid of it).

Maybe these old media folks are upset because their content can't compete. Have you tried writing better Web headlines?

(As always, Techdirt breaks it down into nice, simple terms.)

Freaking Freakonomics RSS Feed Controversy

Posted by junger - 08/22/07 at 10:08:31 pm

Who'd have thought that RSS feeds could cause such a controversy?

Well, they can. Just ask the subscribers of the Freakonomics blog, formerly an independent blog but now a part of the NY Times media group.

The blog, written by the authors of Freakonomics, the social economics masterpiece (IMHO), has recently switched from full site RSS feeds to partial feeds.

Steven Dubner, author and blogger, admits that the switch came because of the new "partnership" with the NY Times. "Yes, this is a result of our new partnership with NYTimes.com. You can blame the Times if you want, but that would be unfair and imprecise, since this is a partnership, which means that you should also feel free to blame us," he writes.

TechDirt has taken them to task, and pointed out why full site feeds actually increase traffic. "The whole idea is that by making it easier and easier for anyone to read and fully grasp our content, the more likely they are to spread it via word of mouth, and that tends to lead to much greater adoption than by limiting what we give to our readers and begging them to come to our site if they want to read more than a sentence or two."

As a web publisher and as a business person, I can see the arguments both ways. I know some people who won't subscribe to feeds that aren't full site. I know many who don't care.

There's absolutely no one who will only subscribe to to partial feeds, but there are plenty who want to read stories the way they want to. Why should we lose them as customers? As TechDirt implies, they're going to be more passionate about the content than drive-by-surfers.

It's a shame that such an interesting and unique brand like Freakonomics is selling out. But at least they're tackling the issue with their users.