We're changing our Web site By Judy Patrick Sunday, July 26, 2009
I love overhearing people talk about a story they’ve read in The Gazette. It happens a lot in the morning as I head into work, stopping along the way to buy coffee, work out at the Y or pick up dry cleaning. I don’t care if they loved the story or hated it. I’m just happy that the previous day’s work has come to its rightful conclusion. Such was the case one morning this past week. I was at the gym and the conversation to my right was about an article in that morning’s Gazette. The talk put a little spring in my workout, until one of the men said: “I’ll have to go online and read it. I don’t get The Gazette.” As the managing editor of The Gazette, that’s not what I want to hear. But the timing of the comment, given the struggle newspapers all over the country are facing, was ironic. Beginning Aug. 3, we’re changing how our Web site functions, offering unlimited access to subscribers but restricting access to those who aren’t. We launched our free online Web site in December 2007, much later than most newspapers around the country. Since then, our newsroom has come to appreciate how the Web site, with its vast digital capabilities, can add to what we do as journalists. Frankly, while most of us in the newsroom were anxious to aggressively join the online competition, people on the business side of our operation didn’t much like the idea of giving our product away for free. It didn’t make sense, especially because the outlook for online advertising revenue was, at that point, far more a hope than money in the bank. Our new Web site made much of our content — our articles, photographs, columns and reviews — available for free. Since then, our Web site has developed and grown in popularity, with thousands of visitors reading our stories and blogs. We’re proud of our Web site, which reflects what we are: a small, family-owned newspaper serving the Capital Region. With that in mind, we’ve decided to change the structure of our Web site in a way that offers more information to the people who pay for our paper — our subscribers — but less information to those people who do not. The change, effective Monday, Aug. 3, will give subscribers unlimited Web access to our new and expanded Web content, as well as to our online electronic replica of the day’s paper. Together, the two versions provide a comprehensive view of the news we cover. Customers, who now pay $4 a week for home delivery, will continue to pay $4 a week via a special combination package: $3.99 for the print subscription and a penny more for our online subscription. Online-only subscriptions will also be available, at $2.95 a week. Non-paying visitors will still have access to some of our Web site. They will, for example, be able to read our blogs, check TV schedules, look at our photo galleries and monitor breaking news. They will not, however, be able to read the full text of our local stories, reviews, obituaries and columns or post comments on stories....................>>>>..................................>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/editors/2009/jul/26/0726_webchange/
She still doesn't get it. People will just go to the free TU site-and the Gazetto will become more and more irrevelent. Only the Gazetto thinks restricting readership is a positive.
These are comments to the gazette regarding their change in wesite information:
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July 26, 2009 8:31 a.m. [ Suggest removal ] davidgiacalone ( no real name given ) says... You're right: I'm frustrated and annoyed by this reversion to an online policy similar to one that failed prior to December 2007. The biggest problem for myself and other people with weblogs is the inability to link to your articles when discussing Schenectady news and issues. In effect, you will no longer be the "newspaper of record" online for our community -- the voice of Schenectady to the world beyond your hardcopy distribution zone. I will no longer be able to point my readers to the Gazette and they won't be able to do so at their own weblogs. When a local story of interest deserves web coverage, I'll be looking at the websites of your competitors for coverage.
July 26, 2009 8:50 a.m. [ Suggest removal ] AnnieB ( no real name given ) says... Oh no! What a disaster. Not only will Schenectady once more disappear from all view, but obituaries too! Know what obituaries are? They are a way to tell everyone that knows a person that they are gone. That's everyone...not just local people but anyone who scans the web for the name of that person! I'll be once again warning all my Schenectady friends that they need to instruct their families to be sure to get their obits in the Albany Times-Union, NOT the Daily Gazette. Useless. We buy the paper every day (delivery not timely for us early birds) and so it doesn't matter to us...until we travel! I hope that at least you would include publicly the name and date for each obit, and the funeral home, so people could connect there. We are indeed lucky that channel 9 and the TU exists so that Schenectady gets a few hits in google or yahoo news. For shame, Ann B'Rells
July 26, 2009 10:05 a.m. [ Suggest removal ] davidgiacalone ( no real name given ) says... p.s. As of August 3rd, scores of links to the Gazette from my weblogs will be broken. Every day, Google refers people from around the world to my sites on issues from sex offenders, police code of silence, and economic development projects, to pink flamingos and Frank Duci's grocery-list will. They will learn that we cannot count on the Gazette being available as a resource for the Schenectady angle on these topics -- and they will surely not be willing to pay your new fee of $2 to see a single article.
July 26, 2009 11:12 a.m. [ Suggest removal ] cloverfield ( no real name given ) says... What is the status of people who subscribe to the Friday, Saturday and Sunday issues -- are they left out too? I was a daily subscriber to the Gazette for years and even though, in theory, I would like to support the Schenectady newspaper I cut back my subscription. Like the Daily Gazette I, too, have to watch my bottom line. The cost of a Gazette subscription went up while content was eliminated or compressed. Thank goodness for the Times-Union and their wonderful web site!
Where did Ms. Patrick study business? LOL. Online readership= future subscriptions. They keep repeating the same failed policies and expect different results? Kinda like Obama? The think they can squeeze some nickels out of the oppressed, overtaxed Schenectady sheeple.
It's funny reading the protests {they did not censor}on their own website. The sheeple will continue to ignore this liberal rag and read the TU free online. This site should do the same thing. They have decided to commit suicide.
Now this is what I don't understand. They still have to pay for their web service right? So no cut in spending there. Now, they are going to decrease information on their website hopefully to FORCE people to pay for a subscription. Well that's not going to happen eithersince you can walk into any diner or dunkin donuts or work place where there is a 1 or 2 papers there to service ALL of their customers or employees. Not to mention that their website never had ALL of the articles printed in the paper anyway. With that knowledge, people who wanted the hard copy would have already subscribed. This does not seem like a good business move for the gazette.IMHO
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime”
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The river in the village a priest lived in was about to burst its banks and drown everything. A car pulled up to the church and shouted to the priest, "Father, we can squeeze you in. Hop in!" The priest replied, "No, you go my children. Save someone else. God will save me!" The water level kept rising and some people in an inflatable boat rowed to the church and shouted to the priest, "Father! Hop in! You're going to drown!" The priest replied, "No, go save someone else. God will save me!" Now the whole town was under water. The priest made it to the roof of the church where a helicopter hovered nearby and shouted to him, "Father, grab the rope!" to which the priest replied, "No, don't worry about me. God will save me!"
Our poor friend the priest drowns and he goes to heaven. When he met God, he asked him, "I've been your humble servant all my life. I helped the poor and did good deeds. Why didn't you save me?" And God replied, "Whatever do you mean? I sent you a car, and you said no; I sent you a boat, and you refused; and when I sent you a helicopter, you still said no."
Bottom line, they chose to enter into their website, they're making the decisions - despite what everyone advised them to do, they still went with a subscription model. It's failing - yet they continue to hold on to a strand of hope.
Sink or swim. Obviously, they're choosing to sink.
just another nail in the coffin! Too bad! Perhaps the city or the plex will offer them a bail out, huh? Hey nothing would surprise me anymore.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Dont worry----eventually they will cry to the government for 'regulation' of information.....and dont think there wont be a top 10% willing to do this......information and the control thereof controls the masses with the $$ and with the guns......
this is evolution at it's best.......
makes you wonder how we evolved...or did we? the cave walls may just be coming back in style.....no controls there.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Can I sign up for JUST the on-line edition??? I'll pay the $0.01 for it...that's about how much any of the reporting outside of actual town news is worth.
This was a comment left on the Gazette's weblog regarding their change. Click on the link to read the entire weblog:
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July 28, 2009 2:02 p.m. [ Suggest removal ] countyresident ( no real name given ) says... I get my news from http://www.rotterdamny.infohttp://www.schny.info/cgi-bin/forum/Blah... people reporters, real peoples reactions, not slanted by overzealous reports doing a party line release.
Logged
She still doesn't get it. People will just go to the free TU site-and the Gazetto will become more and more irrevelent. Only the Gazetto thinks restricting readership is a positive.
Save a tree-cancel your Gazetto subscription. It's the green thang to do!
