Man Bites Dog: NY Times Objects to Revenue for its Blogs | Hacker News Reader

Man Bites Dog: NY Times Objects to Revenue for its Blogs

kachingle.com

31 pointsT_S_24 comments

Odd that they're using a rip-off of the NYTimes blog template for their own blog.

I thought that too. That seems suspect considering that their actions seem to be courting a lawsuit.

I installed the Kachingle browser extension and it works like a charm for me. I read the NY Times blogs regularly and Kachingle showed me some lesser-known NY Times blogs that I'm reading today.

I like to be able to donate directly to writers, so I'm all in favor of blog tip jars, donation pages, and everything like it. Paywalls are a RPITA for sharing content.

[Disclosure: I know people at Kachingle]

I would similarly object if someone were to breach my paywall. If you don't like the NYT's, write your own newspaper, or use one of the many competing options.

Of course you would object. Pepsi objects when you buy Coke, but that's not really Coke's problem.

They've developed a circumvention device. I don't know what the analogy is for soda -- putting generic cola in a Pepsi can , selling it as Pepsi, and putting out a tip jar for voluntary contributions to Pepsi? -- but if you were doing it, Pepsi would squash you flat and be well within its rights to do so.

Are you sure? I don't see anything on their site about circumventing a paywall. Also, I don't even think NYTimes re-launched their paywall yet.

As far as I could tell, you "donate" $5 dollars a month to Kachingle, and they distribute this donation (after taking their cut) according to the sites you visit. It seems as if they are trying to "stop the paywall" by demonstrating an alternate way to generate the revenue, and in so doing convince sites that instituting a paywall is unnecessary. So, no, it seems no paywalls are being circumvented.

However, I don't get why they're sending the payment to the blog's email address and not the NYT (disclaimer: don't know how the NYT blogs work). It seems to me Kachingle would be better applied at the site level. Given my limited understanding, I can definitely see how applying it at this granular level would annoy NYT - their paywall solution would make money for NYT first (and trickle down later) whereas this seems to make money for the bloggers first, and not for NYT. At the very least, payment should be split between NYT and the specific blogger. (And if this is incorrect and the payment is in fact going to NYT - then why on earth do they send it to so many different places?!)

I like the idea of Kachingle for reading across multiple sites, but the NYT blog situation just seems weird. No matter what though - assuming my evaluation is even correct - figuring this stuff out took way too much digging and reading on Kachingle's site.

Both of you are correct they are not circumventing anything. Their plugin is just to track which blogs, which are freely available, you are actually reading so they know how to split your $5 according to what you actually read each month.

They don't have to send the money to anyone. They could keep it for themselves. But if they did no one would use the service as it wouldn't make sense. Instead they donate to the writers personally. It's the same idea as United Way collecting donations and then forwarding those donations to various causes, while keeping a bit for overhead.

Not illegal. If they were hosting content, copying content or circumventing, then it would be a problem.

Their use of official photos and logos of the blogs without permission is not fair use though, that part will have to go. But they can certainly collect donations for a third party according to any system they want without needing the third party's permission.

I would similarly object if someone were to breach my paywall.

So they are breaching a paywall? That wasn't made clear in the post. I assumed this was distributing funds for public facing content.

Because I find Kachingle to be a pretty interesting idea, I'd like to offer an open suggestion to their staff: They REALLY need to design more buttons to put on your blog. They have three options and none of them actually fit easily on my blog. Which makes it hard to try out their idea.

They should have a Feedburner-sized image, a Facebook like-button-sized image and a large, think, more horizontal shape (think 960x30). Since they don't have any of these, I can't put them on my blog without redesigning it slightly. It's a shame, too, because I think their idea is pretty cool.

In regards to the Kachingle vs. NYT paywall thing, I think it's an intriguing stunt. Who knows if it'll actually work, but I think as a promotion tool, you can't beat disruption.

We continue to expand the number of styles and sizes available and this feedback is really helpful in understanding what to do next with our scrappy little team, thanks.

While this is not 100% finalized I think you can count on the slim, wide style used on the KachingleX/NYTimes blogs pages being more generally available soon.

Bill (Technical Marketing, Kachingle)

Need a tester? That's exactly the kind of thing I was talking about, actually. :D

One suggestion I have is to make it resizable so that you can integrate it anywhere that makes sense. I think a flexible design (kinda like the FB Fan Box) would be very helpful. Glad to see the work your scrappy team is doing.

Thanks for offering! Our system is not set up to enable this (yet). Note that the Medallions are not an image plus JavaScript but HTML, CSS and image or three, and JavaScript inside an iframe, with the real content generated at page load time based on the state of the person viewing the page (person signed up with Kachingle and if so, does he or she already support the site).

Looking at http://shortformblog.com/, it’s a really nice, clean, readable design and your concern about fitting new elements in is completely understandable. Specifically in terms of size I think our Jazz style, which is 61x61, could fit in the column where you have the Retweet and FB Like buttons per post.

You're using WordPress so our shiny plugin (I admit to pride of authorship for it) makes it straightforward for you to have different Medallions for yourself, Seth and each/any of the other authors.

/turning off sales mode

If true, that seems like a pretty naive way to silence a blogger on a mission.

Update: instead of Fedexing a C&D, the NY Times has filed a lawsuit, http://www.kachingle.com/kachinglex/2010/10/nytimes-files-la...

Bunny the K9 Kachingler totally agrees!

I don't think I agree with kachingle's stance. Casting the situation into one I can more easily grasp:

What if I feel that movies should be free; that there be an "open-theatre"? I pay my $11.00, set up my camera and sound equipment, and press record. I then share this recording with a bunch of like-minded folks. ... Wait a second...

It's $11 more than Hollywood usually makes from pirates.

So "piracy"* is okay so long as the money ends up in the hands of the producers? Maybe you're not saying that, but it's the implication I picked up. That's such a strange scenario. Instead of paying the theatre $11.00, I instead pay a third party $5.00, who (ostensibly) takes a cut, and then gives the theatre the remainder?

I really like the idea behind Kachingle, but I don't support them subverting paywalls, no matter if I personally agree that information should be free and open.

*I really don't like the word "piracy" in this context; I'm using it as shorthand.

So "piracy" is okay so long as the money ends up in the hands of the producers?

No, piracy is always okay.

We agree that the writers (and publishers) of the Times need to be paid--KachingleX is in no way an attempt to take that material for free. We do think that a paywall is the wrong way to ensure these folks get paid, though.

As our founder tweeted yesterday, comparing paywalls and social payments: "Paywalls: forced, solitary, a hassle, alienate readers. Social payments: open, social, easy, fun, tap community u build."

Bill (Technical Marketing, Kachingle)

The decision to put the content that the NYTimes produces behind a paywall should be the decision of the NYTimes. Regardless of how great the idea is, how noble the intent, and how you're honestly trying to pay for the content, it's not your guys' place to force the NYTimes to accept a third-party payment.

It might ultimately turn out that Kachingle's way of doing things is the best solution for the NYTimes, but they should be allowed to come to that conclusion themselves.

I'm not sure what your founder's tweet does for this conversation.

Thanks for the response Bill.

Just for clarity, we are not forcing the NYTimes to do anything, we're trying to show them an alternative (and we think better) plan _before_ they put the paywall in place. You're absolutely correct that the final decision is in their hands.

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