Introduction
The NY Times paywall has been quite lucrative... for me. Traffic to my advertising supported blog tripled after posting instructions to my little paywall hack. I posted a couple of links in Twitter, using a clever url shortner, http://j.mp/nytpaywall , but I shouldn't have bothered, as the vast majority of traffic came in via Google. Visitors came in from all over, including from the Associated Press and the US Senate.
The New York Times spent 40 million dollars on the paywall. I'm posting these new paywall hacking/workaround instructions while in bed in my underwear, using my TV (note the shaky mouse in the screen capture: I'm using a remote control trackball !).
To my dismay, I read a comment in a forum where someone, after reading my last post, didn't understand the instructions (sympathy goes out to Ronald Reagan). So here is my second try (also advertiser supported).
A picture is worth a thousand words. But for the visual impaired out there, here is what you do:
Paywall Tearing Down Instructions
URL: Uniform Resource Locator (website address).
You highlight the text after the .html in the url (also known as website address), and you press "delete" or "backspace", your choice. When, and if, you get to page 2 of an article, you delete the part of the url after page=2 .
Other NY Times Paywall Hacking Options
If this is still too complicated for you, then your job probably doesn't pay enough to house you, never mind paying for a New York City online newspaper. So here is what you can do:
-Read the NY Times in multiple browsers.
-Read the NY Times on multiple Internet devices (PS3, Nintendo, iPad, spare computer, work computer, iPod touch, iPhone, Android Phone, etc...)
-Delete cookies.
-Copy the title of the article into Google (or Bing, or Ask.com, etc...). This will only give you page 1 of the article, but it is a useful method if you don't have access to a keyboard to press "delete" using my method.
-Right click on the article and select "view source". As an added benefit, you may passively learn hypertext mark-up language.
-Use complicated plug-ins and add-ons like NYT Clean that have unintended consequences.
-Access the NY Times online via Twitter feeds like Free Unnamed News (Hat Tip to Gizmodo Australia).
3 comments:
Hi Alta.
First of all, congrats for your work, your trick is so easy but still so effective. If the traffic of your site (and therefore, your income) soared, you deserve it!
Just, try not to sound so "bigheaded", defining another good work like NYTClean a "complicated plugin or addon". You know it is not complicated, it's just a different, quicker way of doing the same thing.
Regards and keep up the good work
Franco
If you look carefully at my post, NYTClean is in the list I've provided for those who can't master the delete key.
For many of THOSE people, "installing" NYTClean is complicated.
For everybody else, it could simply have unintended consequences like having your Internet cut off (France), put in jail (USA) or simply sued (Canada). Using software, even simple Java based, to circumvent payment, is illegal. Worse, a third party (NYTClean), knows exactly what you read. Maybe the NYTClean author is an inbeded Russian spy. Or maybe he will hand over the server records to the NY Times when served with a warrant...
I suppose pressing delete key is also illegal, but it would be harder to get a conviction/compensation.
this doesn't work for the London Times. Any ideas about getting under THAT paywall? thetimes.co.uk
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