Reuters responds to AP’s deranged attempt to charge up to $2.50 a word for content.
Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works.
Alienating those you wish to attract is indeed a braindead business “strategy.” Yet that’s precisely what AP (and RIAA) are doing.
A better approach is to have a general agreement among community members to treat others’ content, business and ideas with the same respect you would want them to treat yours.
That’s what Reuters does now. They listen. They encourage people to link to their content. They provide widgets. They get it.
If you are doing something that you would object to if others did it to you – stop. If you don’t want search engines linking to you, insert code to ban them.
Precisely. It’s not complicated. But for Polizeros the solution is simple. Never link to AP again. They aren’t essential. Reuters or someone else will be covering the story.
I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting.
Like I said, Reuters is not only on the clue train, they’re leading it while AP wants to blow up the train tracks.
Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations.
Exactly.