The lede from this piece (which I think was taken from an AP story run on CNN.com, although it’s not clear) sums it up perfectly:<\/p>\n
Imagine if a trip to the corner newsstand required handing over your name, address, age, and income to the cashier before you could pick up the daily newspaper.<\/p>\n
That’s close to the experience of many online readers, who must complete registration forms with various kinds of personal data before seeing their virtual newspaper…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I currently have a page of college-lined paper crammed with combinations of user names and passwords. Some of these are for accounts with companies who handle my money or credit card information. I can understand that.<\/p>\n
But it’s to the point where I absolutely refuse to add more combos to this list. It’s insane.<\/p>\n
If that means I don’t read some article online, so be it.<\/p>\n
I’m not alone in my sentiments, of course. Here’s an argument by Adrian Holovaty that online newspaper registration is not only irritating<\/a>, but self-defeating.<\/p>\n
Everyone I’ve talked to (techies and non-techies alike) sees this type of registration as an extremely annoying barrier with no redeeming value. There’s no personal tie to a typical news-site registration account, no incentive to give accurate information or even care about who has access to your account . . .<\/p>\n
(No, saying “Registered users get more highly-targeted ads!” isn’t enough. Neither is saying “The benefit of registration is that you get the content.” That’s nothing short of arrogant — and readers can and will get their regurgitated AP stories elsewhere.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And here’s a post by Simon Willison that offers a link to a site called BugMeNot<\/a> which provides user name\/password combinations you can use to access newspaper sites.<\/p>\n
Well, okay, that way you don’t have to go through the rigamorole of filling out the form. But you still can’t just read the article.<\/p>\n
The worst offender by far, btw, is a certain online paper that doesn’t ask you to register when you first click on their article.<\/p>\n
They wait until you’ve read 2\/3 of it.<\/em><\/p>\n
What are they thinking?<\/p>\n
“Hey, let’s not just inconvenience our online audience — let’s try to infuriate them! Maybe we can make a killing selling ads for tranquilizers!”<\/p>\n
You will never see a link to that site on this blog, I’ll tell you that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The lede from this piece (which I think was taken from an AP story run on CNN.com, although it’s not clear) sums it up perfectly: Imagine if a trip to the corner newsstand required handing over your name, address, age, … Continue reading