doodledee

There's a neat column over at Wired that discusses how the Wall Street Journal's online subscription model is slowly rendering them obsolete and perhaps even fatally wounding their long-term viability as one of The Go-To Media Outlets in our society. In a nutshell, the argument goes that because the WSJ's website has basically no 'public' access, no blogger is going to bother to link to a WSJ article based on the assumption that none of his/her readers will have access to it. The Death Spiral kicks in when you realize that in like 10 years there could theoretically be a generation of people who only get their news from the blogs and/or Jon Stewart and will never have been exposed to the Journal as an input source. And that's borderline insane when you consider that a) the WSJ is an *extremely* good paper b) most stuff you read on the web is made-up and c) Jon Stewart's nightly tantrums about the war in Iraq may actually continue for another 10 years.

I like this story for a couple of reasons. First and foremost there's the fact that for years and years the Journal was the darling of the web commerce/content world because they were the ones who had somehow managed to figured it out: they were publishing web content that people were willing to pay for. And that basically made them geniuses. And everyone wanted to be like them. And there were a lot of people running around with venture cap money. Connect the dots for yourself. Or let me tell you about how back in the bubble days I worked for a client who was big into content creation (news, commentary, etc) and on more than one occasion I was told that the WSJ model was something they were interested in. Well duh, of course it is, it's what everyone is interested in. (Including Salon.com, who, because they lack the history, prestige, and readership of the WSJ have therefore been deemed irrelevant and not worth talking about anymore.)

The neat part is how the WSJ's awesome business model of yesteryear is how now it's [maybe] blowing up in their faces. I know that obvious, but I felt I needed to state it explicitly.

I'm personally not even close to convinced that it's a Good Thing that people ignore content that's not free. This 'give it to me free or die' attitude seems kind of shallow and shortsighted. I'm not saying the Journal's current model is necessarily working or even viable, but there's gotta be a middle ground. Are they supposed to be hip and just take donations or something? I hear that's all the rage now.

And I guess I'm also not so sure that people are really ready to turn their back on subscription/paid content. After all, a subscription to one of those fancy scientific periodicals can cost like $1000/yr, yet somehow they still manage to maintain their solid reputations - and circulations - in academic and professional communities. And what's more, some of them even charge for access to their web content. GASP! Where's the outcry from the blogging community about how nature.com restricts access to certain stuff based on if you're a subscriber to the print edition? Or better yet, where's the bold prediction that scientists of the future will just publish their work on blogs instead of in peer-reviewed journals? Is it really that crazy to think that way? (Hint: right now my answer remains 'yes'.)

Oh, and I also like the story because it reminds me of the critique I made of the Star Tribune’s link changing policy a few months ago. And for the record I still think it’s totes stupes. Fix it.

Whither The Wall Street Journal? [wired]
How to Save The Economist and The Journal from Irrelevance [battellemedia]
in other news, doodle archives still free [doodledee]