ny times

This is kind of bizarre. The folks over at the Nieman Lab have pointed out that when the NY Times launched its paywall, one of the things they said was that in the event of a "9/11-like" story, they can push a button and pull down the paywall to make sure everyone had access to the news.

And yet... the head honchos at the NY Times decided not to do so for the news of Osama Bin Laden's death.

The argument for why really makes very little sense.

We've already pointed out how the NY Times' "paywall," which says it's okay if you click from any other site rather than the NY Times' own site, appears to harm the NY Times and help competitors, and it seems some competitors are stepping up into the breach.

We've been quite critical of the NYTime's "Emperor's New Paywall," but there's another aspect to the discussion that goes beyond just the "paywall" itself, but the fact that part of that "paywall" is really granting access to either a smartphone or iPad app.

Of course, they're charging an awful lot for the privilege of having access to the app, and you'd think if they were doing that, the app had better be damn good.

While the US government is struggling to come up with something (anything!) to bring Julian Assange to court over, one man in Florida has taken matters into his own hands.

Last week, we wrote about The NY Times threatening Kachingle, over a silly publicity stunt that Kachingle pulled.

As we explained, Kachingle, which is a voluntary micropayment-type solution (somewhat similar to Flattr), for blog and journalism content, had put up a site where it encouraged the NY Times not to set up the paywall it's planning.

While I've still been linking to NY Times articles for Techdirt posts, if there are decent stories on the same subject elsewhere, I've been starting to use those other sources instead.

That's because I know we're getting closer and closer to 2011 -- when the NY Times has promised to lock up its content behind a paywall.

A few folks this week sent over a story in the Guardian by Josh Halliday and Charles Arthur with a graphic purporting to show who was suing who in the smartphone space, following the news that Microsoft had sued Motorola.

Last year, the NY Times announced plans to implement a paywall in 2011. We're not entirely sure what they've been working on over the year between the announcement and the actual implementation (as many of the "leaked" details seemed to contradict other comments), but apparently the company is quietly testing a paywall on a separate local newspaper, the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, MA.

Always interesting economist Tyler Cowen has a story in the NY Times discussing the "cost" of free parking.

It's based on the book The High Cost of Free Parking, which spent an astounding 733 pages to delve into the subject.

Towards the end of July a few people submitted the news that Indonesia's Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring had ruled that all Indonesian ISPs had to start blocking access to porn by August 11th (the start of Ramadan).