I saw reference in another article that the Toronto Star had recently removed registration from its website, the start of a new trend that is good news for readers and encourages bloggers to link to articles. I managed to hunt down this December 13, 2005 article: Toronto Star removes registration from thestar.com.
If you haven't looked at thestar.com lately, you should. They have added links to blogs by columnists, a "podcast" section where some of their writers post one-off audio segments, they have RSS feeds for various types of news including headlines, and you can also register for alerts (probably the same as the RSS feeds, for those not yet using them).
They've got the right idea. I wish the Globe and Mail and National Post would follow suit with making articles more accessible! I have long felt requiring registration has alienated readers and discouraged people from citing their publications.
1 comment:
i had been very partial to the star for its excellent technology coverage,. when it went behind the registration wall, i still went to the effort of setting up an account, but after michael geist starting posting his star columns in parallel on his own site, the urge to deal with the star hassle diminished.
once you lose audience attention, i think it is very challenging to re-aquire it, and while this publisher flip-flop will keep its current readers happy, any former readers aren't likely to be lured back unless the content itself becomes even more compelling compared to the alternate sources that were drawn upon during the registration interregnum.
oh, and i spent the weekend learning more about RSS now that i have firefox+sage installed on my home pc. i've added a feed to my own blog, all coded manually. others here don't seem to care, but i know that i was very stoked when it all began to click.
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