Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Select THIS!

HT to Rusty Idols: After two years, the New York Times has decided that while its "Times Select" business model for its website did have short term benefits and made the revenue it anticipated, it conceded that long term it simply is an untenable model and that the firewall that blocked columnists like Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert and Tom Friedman to non-subscribers was circumvented both by search engines and some bloggers who helped their readers get around it.

It has decided that instead, it will make more ad revenue by offering up targeted ads based on someone's IP address -- with regionally focused advertisements as well as those based on previous surfing patterns at its website. Just as it does at the open parts of its site, and other media companies do at theirs.

While it has its faults, the NYT remains one of the papers of record in the United States (others include the LA Times and WaPo) and its opinions do wield a great deal of influence in some quarters of Washington. And I for one applaud its decision to lift the veil. It couldn't come at a more important time, as the GOP and its TV media allies do everything they can to ensure Rudy Guiliani or Fred Thompson is elected President next year. The more mainstream and alternate media voices that speak out against four more years of Republican hegemony in the executive, the better.

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