Damian Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 Since I am a native WNY'er now living in NC, I use this site extensively to get my Bills news/fix. The Rochester D&C is now blocking online access to their Bills articles unless you are a subscriber. IMO, the people responsible for this decision don't seem to understand how the internet works. Advertisers pay to put ads on your website. If you only allow access to your subscribers, you are greatly reducing the web traffic on your site, hence making your advertisers less likely to pay to put ads on your site. Unless they believe this is going to cause a whole lot of people to suddenly decide to subscribe to their paper so they can access their website (if you get the paper delivered to your house, you really don't need the website), it seems to me they are going to lose more advertising money than they would gain in subscribers.
dollars 2 donuts Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 Damian, not that this should make you feel any better, but I thought they were all headed in that direction, even the Buffalo News.
San Jose Bills Fan Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 Yep. The Buffalo News will be following suit shortly. I just don't recall exactly what day their new policy will be effective… probably a day or two within the start of Bills season.
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 Silly. Wasn't this tried like 10 years ago by a bunch of newspapers and failed miserably?
PromoTheRobot Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 I don't know why but papers are having trouble turning page views into ad dollars. As if people on the internet looking at ads don't count the same as people looking at paper. PTR
bowery4 Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 I don't pay to play. The internet has plenty of options.
Damian Posted August 16, 2012 Author Posted August 16, 2012 The Buffalo News is going that way too? Argh! Where is the Courier Express when you need it??
dollars 2 donuts Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 The Buffalo News is going that way too? Argh! Where is the Courier Express when you need it?? Oh man wouldn't that be great. ...they would probably switch as well, though.
plenzmd1 Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 Not just confined to Buffet, but all the Buffett owned newspapers going this route. That was all part of his strategy why he bought into the newspaper business in a big way this year, while everyone else was calling it a dead medium. He understands local papers in close communities are not going away, and that people like me will pay for access on the interwebs. I prolly not bucking up for the D&C..but the Buffalo News will have my order day 1 when the subsription is required. Will prolly have the paper donated to a school or something.
poo Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 A quick tip. If you really want to see a D&C article or any paper's site and you have used up all the free articles, go to google news and search the article's title. For some reason, when you get a link through google news it won't stop you from reading the article. I use it all the time to read stuff on the New York times and it seems to work for the D&C as well.
CodeMonkey Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 (edited) The D&C has an online only subscription as well that is cheaper than the tree killing offering (except Sunday deliver only for some reason). http://www.democrata...RIPTION-OPTIONS In my opinion this is the future of all publications as tablets become more and more pervasive. Edited August 16, 2012 by CodeMonkey
KRC Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 It depends on the content that you have in the subscriber section. With my magazine, I have a free section and a section just for subscribers. Just by creating the subscriber-only section and adding unique content, I saw a 25% increase in subscriptions within the first few days. The subscriptions did not drop, and we continued to get new subscribers. As I continually added unique content and advertised the unique content, subscriptions increased. People specifically stated that they subscribed to get access to the stuff in the pay section. It can be an effective model, if you provide unique content. If it is the same content that people can access for free elsewhere, you will lose visitors. Just my $0.02 USD from my little world.
Luxy312 Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 As several posters have noted, there are far to many free information sites out there to justify paying for a subscription to recap the same news. Heck, there's a decent little app for WKBW-TV for the Ipad that has great little video reporting clips on various comings and goings with the Bills, Sabres, and other local teams. Newspapers and even magazines are heading down the path of being free. Although to be fair, newspapers are far ahead. Even hear in Chicago, the Sun Times is no longer. Now, there's people handing out the free Redeye paper in the morning that is paid for, by you guessed it.....advertising. It depends on the content that you have in the subscriber section. With my magazine, I have a free section and a section just for subscribers. Just by creating the subscriber-only section and adding unique content, I saw a 25% increase in subscriptions within the first few days. The subscriptions did not drop, and we continued to get new subscribers. As I continually added unique content and advertised the unique content, subscriptions increased. People specifically stated that they subscribed to get access to the stuff in the pay section. It can be an effective model, if you provide unique content. If it is the same content that people can access for free elsewhere, you will lose visitors. Just my $0.02 USD from my little world. Great points and very true! Uniqueness of content is key.
benderbender Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 just view in private mode... I'm a lieutenant and that would be dishonest
Last Guy on the Bench Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 I'd feel a lot worse about this if the days of getting useful sports info out of local papers hadn't long since passed. Ever since press conference videos and transcripts became available, I've been shocked to realize how few reporters do anything but go to those conferences and cobble together a few quotes to make a story. Since I've already seen all the quotes at source, I almost never get anything out of the local guys any more. There are exceptions - I think Tim Graham will actually go talk to someone different sometimes, and our own AP meister John W. often does some legwork. But the exceptions are too few to tempt me to subscribe to a paper, plus John's stuff is readily available anyway, being AP. And as for commentary, I get more insight from The Stadium Wall - from the actually knowledgeable football guys here who watch something more than just the ball - than I do from any columnist. I'll take Simon or Bill from NYC or Kelly the Dog or a number of others over any columnist going. They might not always be right. But they are always interesting and original.
In-A-Gadda-Levitre Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 A quick tip. If you really want to see a D&C article or any paper's site and you have used up all the free articles, go to google news and search the article's title. For some reason, when you get a link through google news it won't stop you from reading the article. I use it all the time to read stuff on the New York times and it seems to work for the D&C as well. great tip poo! On my ipad (safari), I clicked a D&C link off TBD, and I got the expected message, hope you've enjoyed your complimentary access, blah, blah, blah. Then googled the article, and it says I have 1 more free view. Repeating the process a couple more times with different articles gives me the same, 1 more free view. I'll take it!
bonechiller Posted August 16, 2012 Posted August 16, 2012 I actually still get D&C delivery. Last month they actually raised my price and forced me to get web access. I might be old fashioned, but still like reading paper (at least on weekends). Sometimes you stumble across things you wouldn't find on the net unless you know to look. Not real happy about the increase!
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