Businessworld used to be my favourite business magazine back in college days – and it still is.
But then I started working and had to travel abroad also from time to time – so did not have time to grab the “latest issue” – and hence the weekly dosage of BW magazine was one of the things which I used to miss those days.
Then I found BW publishes all the magazine content online also.
I was delighted to find that and then I started following the site religiously.
But BW might have gauged the popularity of the website, hence they thought to encash it and put a price tag on top of it – so one was able to read headlines but can access complete storey only after he registers by paying certain amount of money.
Ha!! … i was disappointed and I knew it was a foolish thing to do. Even if someone is a very very very religious follower of BW, he is not going to register to website and pay to read the stories. So, I stopped following that site and moved to other websites.
One year later when I came back I found out that they have realized their mistake and again opened it for FREE. I smiled at ‘my smartness and understanding of internet’ and their ‘foolishness and lack of common sense’. But till now I was “matured” enough to move to RSS feeds – now I read these “changing content pages” on RSS – not to confused with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh 😀 – so I subscribed to BW’s RSS.
But then I realised that they publish 1-2 lines on their RSS content (and want user to goto their website to read full story) I think this is again a fullish thing to do – I can read 20 RSS stories in 2 minutes – but cannot do that if I surf. And I dont have enough time to surf to find which stories I will like and are worth spending my time. I know the logic behind putting a limited RSS content is so that user is forced to goto website and become more aware about the site and also generate some ad revenues. But a typical internet user is smart enough to understand this and will not be forced to do something.
I think Indian Media (like BW, IBNlive, Moneycontrol etc) has taken at least first correct step by focussing on the online portal and making it more user friendly and making it “free”. But I think RSS is the next big thing – and very soon all net savvy users will embrace RSS feeds as their way of reading blog or news content – so all media sites like BW/IBNlive etc should make RSS “more readable” and useful.
I hope they understand my logic and maybe they will correct their mistake so as to publish RSS with complete stories.