Friday, March 18, 2011

Getting Around New York Times new internet Subscription Policy

Read For Free

As much as a paywall might get your hackles up, the folks running the Times understand that no amount of digital subscription revenue would make up for the sting of a page view exodus. That’s why – in addition to 20 free articles a month, which is pretty generous for your average casual reader – they built in this little clause:
• Readers who come to Times articles through links from search, blogs and social media like Facebook and Twitter will be able to read those articles, even if they have reached their monthly reading limit. For some search engines, users will have a daily limit of free links to Times articles.
That’s similar to the model that’s been employed by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, and means that if there’s ever an NYT article you’re blocked from? You can just copy and paste the headline into Google for free and easy access. Even if you hit your unspecified daily limit on Google, you can head on over to Bing or, if you’re feeling 2002 about it, Alta Vista.
If that’s too labour intensive (all that clicking!), then it’s time to make Twitter your new best friend. Between individual journos, print sections and blogs, there are a whopping 252 Twitter accounts associated with the NYT – none of them shy about pushing out their content. Pick and choose your favourites, or for the full firehose of every single NYT article just follow @freenyt.