Let's face it: Even the best columnists at the
New York Times bat somewhere around the
Mendoza Line when it comes to delivering newsworthy or thought provoking columns. It's simply impossible to write something remarkable in every column.
But why do we, as readers, have to slog through the four out of five marginal columns in order to stumble upon something extraordinary?
What if there was a way to ONLY read the hits and skip the swings and a misses? And, what if you could access the hits for free? Sound too good to be true? Read on.
Technorati.com reports the "Top Searches" conducted on their search engine on their homepage in a continually updated list.
New York Times columnists, being well read and influential, get blogged about a
lot when they write something particularly interesting. A buzz starts brewing, and people start searching for the must-read column. However, they can't access on the NYTimes.com because columns are no longer free. Rather than going directly to the NYTime.com, where the column obviously resides, they turn to blog search engines like Techorati to see if they can dig it up. Over time (hours) the columnist's name rises among Technorati's Top Searches:
Each link takes you to Technorati's search results for that term - in this case, John Tierney. Without fail, a maverick robin-hood blogger will post the column in its entirety on their site so everyone what they've deemed must-read content.
In fact, I found seven blogs that have republished the column in its entirety in the past 17 hours. Technorati has turned the blogosphere into SportsCenter for New York Times columnists, where only the highlights make the cut.
So, how does the NY Times make money off stolen columns? It's hard to advertise next to a column published on another site. Do leaked columns lead to more Times Select subscriptions? I imagine SportsCenter does more good than harm for professional sports attendance. Could the same be true for newspapers?
What incentive do people have to subscribe to the NY Times if they can get the hits for free? Will they pay for the misses? Is a New York Times column read on the NYTimes.com somehow more valuable than reading the same column on a random blog? Somehow, I don't think this correlates with live sporting events versus SportsCenter highlight reels.
What's your take on this? How should the NY Times deal with content that's good enough to steal?
