Tuesday 29 January 2013

Dear Online Newspapers/ Blogs....,

I like you. A lot.
I like reading different views on the same news stories without having to leave the house, like pretty colourful moving pictures and graphics ( I am a 90s child after all) and I like the fact that I can annoy my friends, relations and acquaintances with what I'm reading via Facebook & co.

I am also not against paying for your content. Actually, I think it would probably improve your quality, make you more independent and therefore would bring your actual customer (the reader) back into focus.* I completely get that until the day come when everyone happily pays for online content you need to sell space on your site to advertisers. I know you have bills to pay and children to feed.

What I don't get; what, in fact, really gets to me when you, online media, take the necessity to make money from us punters as an excuse to make our reading experience as awful as possible. I am, of course, referring to adverts/ alerts that pop up in front of the article you are trying to read/ media product you are trying to consume.

Alerts, specifically, that ask you to sign up for a newsletter/ alert etc. before I had a chance to assess, if the outlet is worth my future attention by reading the brothermocking article ( I am looking at you, Huffington Post) or putting up a "voluntary pay wall" (I'm looking at you, Taz).

Please don't do this. If you keep it up, I will have to stop using you sites (I'm to young for an anger-induced coronary.) and I will miss your excellent content. Put your offers, requests and like buttons at the bottom of the article and I will consider, share or even pay, if I liked what I read.

Many thanks,

Slightly Disgruntled

* I would like to take this opportunity to introduce readers to Flattr. A great way to donate to bloggers, artists and musicians you'd like to support on the web.

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