What, Me Register?...short article on the trend towards "registration required" access to news sites and other content. It's frustrating to login in order to read news articles. My concern isn't with privacy (as the author notes, many people don't provide their real identity). My concern is with disruption of access to information. It may only be a matter of a few seconds to login...but multiply that by several hundreds sites, and it adds up. What many paper publishers don't get is that the exclusivity of one news source is diluted online. Locally, I may only have access to a handful of different newspapers. Online, I have access to thousands. The online content has to be exceptional in order for me to register.
Posted by gsiemens at August 5, 2004 03:51 AM