Sheila Lennon mixes a little newspaper economics into the open archives discussion. “(I)f there's a way to make it profitable to open the archives, it could happen. Any ideas?”
Doc’s idea is a good start: “Approach Google and Overture (whose advertising business is running in the $billion/year range, all on the Web) with exactly the problem we've been describing through this whole Printwash thread. Tell them you're willing to consider opening the archives if it makes economic sense, and want to explore advertising deals involving shared revenues. See what happens.”
A possible solution is for papers to keep some stuff behind the wall – proven sellers like obits -- and still make news stories accessible for free. Ad revenue from free news stories might well exceed revenue from archive sales of news stories and all-access packages.
My eensy-weensy weblog gets consistent traffic to its archives via search engines. Surely the archives of even a decent regional paper would attract enough traffic to make advertising worth considering for at least some types of copy.
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Josh Marshall: "Did Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) try to get the Feds to hunt down the runaway Texas Democrats or not? It’s coming down to one man’s word against another’s. On one side you’ve got Tom DeLay, and on the other you’ve got … well, Tom DeLay."
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“Places exist where people reliably have unusual experiences.” Just not supernatural ones. (via Mark Tosczak).
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An unchastened Slate pimps Segway even harder in today’s advertorial.
4:12:14 PM 
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