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I was clicking around on Amazon.com today working on a story and found a link to a Reason magazine story on KeepMedia. The company offers a $50 annual subscription that lets you get stories from a bevy of magazines including Esquire and Newsweek.
But I was pretty sure Reason has an open archive, so I searched on the title and found the whole Tim Cavanaugh article for free.
Hmm. KeepMedia's slogan is "Hundreds of publications. Unlimited Access. One convenient location."
Um, yeah, but the Internet's slogan is "Thousands of publications. Unlimited Access. One convenient location."
I'm still astounded that media companies keep their archives behind a pay-to-pass firewall. Among other things, the Internet is the first draft of history and these companies are making their journalism as ephemeral as it was before the Internet.
The thing is the Internet is an excellent archive and gives the smallest news story a chance at continued relevance in the Long Tail.
Now KeepMedia may have a future as a packaged subscription service for publications' most current articles (a month or so for magazines, a few days for newspapers), but how long will fools continue to pay them to get through a firewall to get at stories found just as easily through Google?
Posted by Ryan Singel at May 3, 2005 12:06 PM
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