Slashdot Mirror
Turning Up The Heat On On-Line Registration
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "CNN is running a story on the growing number of print newspapers with on-line editions that are requiring registration. Apparently there are some folks out there who don't like this 'feature'! I found a few things interesting about the story: Privacy groups say it's a dangerous practice and promotes spam; I didn't realize people put real personal info into these things (110-year-old surgeons from Bulgaria named Mickey Mouse). About 15 to 20 percent of the registrations for the Philadelphia Inquirer turned out to be bogus, a figure that was much lower than I would have thought. Also mentioned in the story is a web site called BugMeNot.com, which lists 'communal' logins and passwords for on-line newspapers."
They call it "Information Poisoning" and are absolutely baffled why on earth anyone would ever practice it. Just for useful reference for other peoples information poisoning efforts I have an easy one to remember
Young America, MN 55555
This will match the zip code to the city and will pass those systems that try to verify against bogus data.
They don't care about the people who refuse to sign up, this is meaningless to them. But if they get enough bogus data, those databases become significantly devalued.
And to whoever has that bob@jones.com email address, I offer my sincerest apologies.
They are not going to be too impressed with marketing data like this. If people can be proven to be lying about one thing in a survey then all the other data is suspect as well.
Compare it with banners ads sold on number of shows, clicks AND sales. The first are insanely high but also easily faked. Clicks are slightly more reliable but any advertiser is really intrestted in the number of sales generated.
So if your site can sell 1 billion views that is barely worth anything. If it can produce 100.000 clicks that might get you a few bucks. But generate 1000 sales and you are golden.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There is no reason they need my name to send me their news and ads
Weird. Despite having been registered with the NYTimes for 2 years now, I've never received any communications from them be it news/spam/anything else nor has the email address I provided them been given to anyone.
Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic
For sites that require a valid email address for registration, there's an excellent site called www.dodgeit.com
You don't need to create an account, just invent one.
Then go to the site and you (and anyone) can look at the mail sent to that address. Go try it out, go to the site, and punch in "ihatespam" for example and you can see all email sent to ihatespam@dodgeit.com
If only sites like these were hosted on some sort of P2P network where any browser could access it, but the 'site' could distribute load across many hosts (and have differing information -- bad that it's not global and constant, but good that it's not controlled and thus can always exist -- an acceptible trade-off).
If you can't get a login/password easy, and need a valid email address to confirm registration, try mailinator.com.
They are email accounts that require no passwords, or even any setting up. They are throw away accounts designed to curb spam.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
Newspapers should do the same thing. Keep the online edition free, and have no soul-sucking registration to view, but only allow the viewing of articles from non-current newspapers.
Ironically, it's the complete opposite. I work for a newspaper, and the only thing we charge for is archive access.
A newspaper's archive is priceless. Where else are you going to get the obit for a relative who died 15 years ago? Only one place, your local newspaper's library.
That's why I use:
:)
@example.com
@example.net
@example.org
(see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2606.txt )
me@example.com works fine on most web pages
brgnever
Heh...actually, there's a firefox extension for bugmenot. Not exactly what you want, but its getting there.
Bugmenot
Others already have posted the obvious answer that newspapers make most of their money on advertising, not circulation. I'll add some precision. (I am a strategist for a newspaper company.)
... which happens to work extraordinarily well on the Internet.
:-)
... please demonstrate where a newspaper has abused the email addresses provided by its users. No newspaper shares those addresses with advertisers. Every news company carefully controls the use of those email addresses -- even the Tribune Company, which requires that you consent to receive ad mail as a condition of site access, severely limits both the number and the nature of the emails. It would be bad business to do otherwise.
Three revenue drivers traditionally have been coequal for printed newspapers: Classified advertising, display advertising (the big ads on news pages), and circulation.
However, circulation revenues are rapidly declining due to market pressures, and circulation costs (a problem of print distribution, but not of Internet distribution) consume more than circulation sales brings in.
Display advertising has declined about 15 percentage points over the last couple of decades, largely due to retail sector consolidations and Wal-Mart (which does not advertise very much in newspapers). So newspapers are increasingly dependent on classified advertising
The audience is moving from print to the Internet, so it is imperative that newspapers find ways to serve that audience online (and deliver advertising to it).
On the Internet, the only business model that has been demonstrated to work for newspapers is the open, ad-supported model. The typical paid site gets something like 1.5 percent of the audience of the printed newspaper, while an open site may actually exceed the audience of the print product. So successful newspapers have open Web sites and rely on advertising for support.
Successful newspapers have implemented classified advertising pricing strategies that harvest that Internet-generated value. The single most effective advertising program implemented by newspapers is the "Top Jobs" program originated at sfgate,, which lets key classified advertisers pay extra for exposure on regular site content pages.
Regardless of what slashdot groupthink might dictate, the reality is that local retail banner and tile advertising also works. However, the Internet -- because of its potential global reach -- creates unique problems for local advertisers.
Consider the Washington Post. Its advertising base is local. Its Web reach is global. If you think about that for maybe five seconds, you can see why they have implemented registration. They have to develop two completely independent ad sales strategies -- one based on a global audience (which is why they ask business questions of nonlocal registrants) and another based on a local audience. And they need to be able to target local advertising based on geographic information from registration and also national advertising based on the B2B questions from registration.
It is an article of faith on slashdot that "everybody" lies on registrations. My own data shows under one percent falsification. Perhaps most people are not as dishonest as slashdotters.
As for the whine about "inevitable spam"
Disclaimer: I Work at a Newspaper in the advertising department...
the thing about online, is now most papers are selling online/print package deals. So you buy your paper ad, add an extra fee, and your ad goes online as well. It works great for the local retailers, even ef people don't actually click through, because the exposure online is longer than in print. (ex. in print, an ad runs for one day, and unless you buy multiple days, or weeks, the effectiveness goes down. On-Line, the ad stays in rotation for a week, which is a better deal for the small local retailers, since they get more exposure locally). They also usually tie-in listings and info pages to advertising, so as long as the retailer signs a contract for "X" number of days, then their listing stay on-line for say, 6 months in the local retailer info or whatever... This days, having an on-line version actually does bring in a decent ammount of revenue, especially with the cost of operating a website vs newsprint and press costs.