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	Phil's Blogservations Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Posted by philgomes 1:05 AM Online Registration And Blogs: "Everyone Loses": J.D. Lasica has written a story about a topic that was originally broached to me by MIT Media Lab's Cameron Marlow: the effect of registration-based online news sites on the blogging community. Generally speaking, I tend not to mind giving personal information like my name, email, and ZIP code in order to get access to a news site's content. Of course, it's all fake. Fabricated. Total hogwash. And the email address is a disposable Hotmail account. But, people shouldn't expect to get something for free. If they're not paying for access (like The Wall Street Journal's site), then minor and easily faked demographic information is a fairly small price to pay. Privacy watchdogs will bristle at this—the inch from which The Man will take his mile—but if that smidgen of personal data is what convinces the site's advertisers to give it the money it needs to continue providing my reading enjoyment, then so be it. Slashdot editor Michael Sims offers a particularly thoughtful, realistic viewpoint: So everyone loses. The newspaper doesn't get the readership. Slashdot readers write complaints instead of [writing commentary about] the story. And finally, everyone ends up reading the story in a comment posted on our site instead of the original site. Translated: The news organization's page-views, site traffic and, ultimately, advertising revenue suffers. HOME | OBSESSIONS | FAQ | HEROES | CAREER | BLOG | CONTACT Note that the views expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of Phil's employer, its business partners, its clients, or anyone or anything that doesn't come from Phil.	ABOUT THIS BLOG This blog not only discusses PR and media matters, but Phil's everyday observations about a variety of topics. EMAIL phil[at] philgomes[[dot}]com SYNDICATE Feedburner ARCHIVE YAHOO! IM SKYPE WISH LIST PITCH POLICY MY PHOTOS www.flickr.com Photostream RSS Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz COMMENT AND TRACKBACK POLICY Comments and trackbacks are unmoderated, though I will delete the patently offensive ones. Any comments and trackbacks are the opinions of the individual writer of those comments and trackbacks, and not those of Phil Gomes, his employer, its clients, or its business partners. If you have a bone to pick, bug the people who wrote the comment or trackback.