News Sites Getting to Know You

The Online Journalism Review has a story about more and more news sites requiring registration. Has assorted facts and figures, including how much sites' traffic dropped when registration was required. Even though a fair percentage of people just make up the data they are asked to provide, I'd guess that as a statistical measure it's probably pretty accurate - many people would tell the truth without caring that they're being tracked.

As a general matter, Slashdot's policy on linking to registration-required websites goes something like this:

The New York Times is okay, because they've got a lot of high-quality stories and they were essentially grandfathered in;

Other registration-required sites are not okay, and we won't post stories linking to them.

Kind of a shame, because the LA Times has some good content too, and we've posted lot of links to them in the past, before they went registration-required. Oh well.

Comments

One reason they do it, is to prevent archiving

[leek]

I think another reason they require registration, is to prevent robots from archiving their stories permanently, since they try to make money by selling access to stories more than a week or two old.

Lots of robots don't even request /robots.txt, but proceed to download and index stories.

Requiring registration is more than 10 times as effective in stopping robots, as /robots.txt is.

Note that the NYTimes and other sites often allow backdoor entry with referers. For example, one of my favorite news portals is MyNewsFirst.com. When you click on a NYTimes story listed there, you don't have to register, because it sends either a "passthrough referer", or an extra query string certificate (e.g. &partner=mynewsfirst), which bypasses the registration requirement.

I'm just glad most RealCities newspapers aren't doing it yet, since they provide geographically diverse news.

some demographic information is reasonable to ask

[rjnagle]

I have absolutely no problem with registration. Especially if the site is free. It's reasonable to give demographic information, geographic information and possibly what industry you are in, nothing more.

As I wrote in my article, Web Communities and the Art of Making Money gathering basic demographic information is vital for obtaining the highest possible advertising rates. For low to medium traffic sites, having a good handle on your reader demographics makes the difference whether your ad rates are high or low. To me, there are very good reasons for demanding a demographic survey right at the very start. Sure, it pisses off a few technologically illiterate readers, but the prospect of free content should be enticement enough.

The problem is that individuals want to keep their personal information private. Many will simply lie about personal information (and really, if a newpaper site is asking for your phone number, that is way too much).

The other problem is the tedious nature of those marketing surveys that some of these registration forms require. Plan to buy a car in the next year? Do you spend over $1000 a year on computer stuff? Do you go on cruises? That sort of crap, besides being irrelevant and none of these site's business, are extremely tedious to fill out. And sometimes it's easy to overlook a radio box you were supposed to uncheck about whether you want to receive regular emails about great new offers.

The next problem is protecting your email address. Only an idiot would give a real or a regularly used email address.

The final problem is linkability. For less web-savvy people, they are unwilling to pursue a link on your weblog if it references a registration-required site. I know for example, some of my international friends would never register for the New York Times site even if the article is great.

That's a problem, but if it gives these media sites a better margin for breaking even, so be it.

Robert Nagle, Austin, Texas

It's the enforced ad views that steam me.

[Le Marteau]

I had no problem registering with the NY Times web site. It was easy, and required no verification.

I read it every day. Until I clicked an article a coupla weeks ago, and was directed to an ad which I was supposed to watch before being re-directed to the story (ala Salon). That did it. I'm never going there again. Washington Post is my mainstream news site now... no enforced ad views and no registration.

I don't know why, but anonymous registration does not bother me, but forcing me to read a fucking ad does it to me.