As a former newspaperman who continues to follow the trade
with both great fondness and great concern, I understand the
economics of registration--or at least the currently held
theory--and have dutifully registered dozens of times.
I do wonder if it loses some newspapers more traffic, and
hence economic benefit, than the newspaper gains from
gathering the registrations. It is the traffic I would think
that advertisers are ultimately interested in. It used to be
that one could go to a URL and look at one or two stories
before being hit with the registration requirement. Now it
almost always comes immediately. Instead of getting a feel
for a newspaper and perhaps be lured into regular visits, a
fair number of browsers dump out at the registration screen.
Newspaper URLs that have the capability of recognizing
automatically registered visiters are a great help but many
don't seem to have that feature.
It saddens me to watch the rapidly declining circulation of a
fine newspaper like the Washington Post and to read that they
will be moving toward the USA Today model with shorter,and
perhaps, simpler stories. For now we are still treated to
Jonathan Yardley articles as fine as the one on Willeford and
if staying registered helps, I'll do my part.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, Jack Quick
<jquick5342@y...> wrote:
> From someone in the newspaper business. It costs
money
> to operate a website and those who own us ask for
a
> piece of flesh in exchange for that investment. We
try
> to get as much of it as we can from the advertisers
so
> it is less painful to our readers.
>
> Registration data helps us get more from
those
> advertisers as they try to better target
their
> customers. So the choices are pay with the time
to
> register of else plan to start sticking quarters
into
> the side of your PC to gain access to some of
this
> work.
>
> To the one who claims "I nevr pay." The answer
is,
> "You alwys pay, its just how."
>
> Alabama Jack
>
>
>
>
> __________________________________
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> Meet the all-new My Yahoo! - Try it
today!
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 02 Jan 2005 EST