Stephen Downes

In the wake of a recent announcement that The Age, an Australian newspaper, is joining the increasing number of newspapers requiring registration, I spent some time this week griping on the Online news mailing list about how such practices were breaking the internet by creating links that mislead readers, taking them to registration pages instead of the articles they were promised. In this light, I ran across BugMeNot, a site that allows users to spoof newspaper page registrations, and the interesting follow-up discussion at Poynter. The whole discussion convinces me that the title article here is correct: newspapers don't get the internet. "Instead of scouting the best blog and independent news reporting talent to create a thematic content powerhouse, they insist in massaging original content into shallow uninteresting stories with no punch or real insight. One thing is sure to me: when they will disappear completely, no one will notice." Yup.