ERODING ASSETS
Regular readers know of my previous gripes with the New York Times' decision to put their columnist content behind a subscription wall online, euphemistically brand it TimesSelect, and make it difficult for even paying subscribers to access the content (see posts here and here). In the first post, I posited on one of the possible costs of this policy:
"You can already see it anecdotally from the company's "most emailed" daily list, which used to be chockful of their op-ed columns. Now the lists are as bare as trees in winter."
Well, VC Fred Wilson went the extra mile and compared the "before" and "after" versions of the "most emailed" lists, and delivers the following conclusion in this informative post.
"In September four of the top 10 stories were editorials.
In October, none of them were..."
A 100% drop-off in legitimate online readership of the op-ed columnists in a month...this is like watching a train crash in slow motion, on Internet time of course.
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