{"id":2762,"date":"2013-07-15T19:58:02","date_gmt":"2013-07-16T00:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/?p=2762"},"modified":"2013-07-15T19:58:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-16T00:58:03","slug":"paywalls-need-usability-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements","title":{"rendered":"Paywalls need usability improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I stated that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/03\/27\/paywalls-arent-bad\">paywalls aren&#8217;t bad<\/a>. But they are downright annoying when it comes to sharing articles. It breaks the whole flow of the sharing economy &#8211; I like to tweet links to things that I find of interest, and when the other party can&#8217;t view it, it surely gets quite annoying.<\/p>\n<p>Paywalls also start imposing IP inspection. Malaysiakini has done this and you are forced to re-login regularly. Its very annoying as it breaks the flow again and you&#8217;re now logging in, then being redirected. So it works like this: click on article, see logged out screen, click on login, then be re-directed to the article. By this time I&#8217;ve lost interest in reading.<\/p>\n<p>Newspapers are read by a whole household. I know of offices reading a single newspaper. Heck, in the clubs that I frequent, probably a hundred people read the same newspaper in the sauna. Paywalls should ensure that the household is taken care of.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What about the modern concept of a household? Father and mother living in the Philippines, daughter working in Malaysia and son working in Dubai? Isn&#8217;t this still a household? Paywalls like those for the FT\/NYTimes seem to understand this (or are not taking action at the moment), but the Malaysiakini paywall slaps you with the crappy user interface above.<\/p>\n<p>I want online media to succeed but broken paywalls aren&#8217;t going to cut it.<\/p>\n<p>On my to-subscribe list is BizKini, which brings a Malaysiakini subscription to a ringgit a day. This is basically the same price you&#8217;ll pay for a newspaper in print! Is their reporting that much better that its worth all the pain of the above? I&#8217;m not so sure.<\/p>\n<p>So besides a broken login UI, how does one improve sharing?<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Paywalls%20need%20usability%20improvements&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2013%2F07%2F15%2Fpaywalls-need-usability-improvements&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"60f9a38056\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-2762\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-2762\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-2762\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I stated that paywalls aren&#8217;t bad. But they are downright annoying when it comes to sharing articles. It breaks the whole flow of the sharing economy &#8211; I like to tweet links to things that I find of interest, and when the other party can&#8217;t view it, it surely gets quite annoying. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"sharedaddy sd-sharing-enabled\"><div class=\"robots-nocontent sd-block sd-social sd-social-icon-text sd-sharing\"><h3 class=\"sd-title\">Share this:<\/h3><div class=\"sd-content\"><ul><li class=\"share-email\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"\" class=\"share-email sd-button share-icon\" href=\"mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20Paywalls%20need%20usability%20improvements&body=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bytebot.net%2Fblog%2Farchives%2F2013%2F07%2F15%2Fpaywalls-need-usability-improvements&share=email\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to email a link to a friend\" data-email-share-error-title=\"Do you have email set up?\" data-email-share-error-text=\"If you&#039;re having problems sharing via email, you might not have email set up for your browser. You may need to create a new email yourself.\" data-email-share-nonce=\"60f9a38056\" data-email-share-track-url=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=email\"><span>Email<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-facebook\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-facebook-2762\" class=\"share-facebook sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=facebook\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Facebook\" ><span>Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-linkedin\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-linkedin-2762\" class=\"share-linkedin sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=linkedin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on LinkedIn\" ><span>LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-twitter\"><a rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" data-shared=\"sharing-twitter-2762\" class=\"share-twitter sd-button share-icon\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/07\/15\/paywalls-need-usability-improvements?share=twitter\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Click to share on Twitter\" ><span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li><li class=\"share-end\"><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1],"tags":[1529],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4vJD-Iy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2681,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/03\/27\/paywalls-arent-bad","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":0},"title":"Paywalls aren&#8217;t bad","date":"27\/3\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The New York Times paywall has become less porous. The idea of reading free content is going away and I think this is great for content producers. I didn't start paying for the New York Times till sometime last year, and I didn't start paying for the Financial Times till\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Business&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8521\/8591348526_bb157c4b4a_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2223,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2011\/11\/25\/how-the-new-google-reader-has-stopped-me-from-sharing","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":1},"title":"How the new Google Reader has stopped me from sharing","date":"25\/11\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I used to click \"Share\" on Google Reader quite regularly. I occasionally did \"Share with note\". Google's killed this feature, focusing on loading a +1 button in the iOS\/mobile interface (\/reader\/i). If you use the regular view (\/reader\/view), you have the option of +1 or a g+ Share. The +1\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":571,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/14\/mysql-and-security-what-do-you-consider-a-security-hole-that-warrants-immediate-action","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":2},"title":"MySQL and Security: what do you consider a security hole that warrants immediate action?","date":"14\/6\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't claim to be a security expert, but I'd like opinions from people in the field, as well as database experts that view security highly. Here are some opinions from a discussion with Chad and Lenz a while ago. What do you consider a security hole, that warrants immediate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;MySQL&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1546,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2009\/06\/09\/forced-password-changes","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":3},"title":"Forced password changes","date":"9\/6\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My employer has this odd policy where they force you to change your password, once every six months or so. Its annoying, because sometimes, you forget your password. Its inherently more insecure to write it down somewhere, isn't it? Plus, you can't reuse passwords. However, my mail client always has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2656,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/02\/27\/upgrading-to-os-x-10-8-and-a-new-macbook-air","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":4},"title":"Upgrading to OS X 10.8 and a new MacBook Air","date":"27\/2\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I unboxed my new MacBook Air 13\" (full-spec) laptop. I used a USB3 disk to backup via Time Machine the old laptop (which maxed out at USB2), and then did a restore using USB3 last night and today it seems that the laptop is ready to use. This is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Tech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2717,"url":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/archives\/2013\/05\/04\/letting-go","url_meta":{"origin":2762,"position":5},"title":"Letting go","date":"4\/5\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"A person's true colours are always shown within time. You may be fooled for the moment, but patience is a virtue that reveals all. As I scroll through Facebook\/Twitter, many of my friends in Malaysia (and the greater Malaysian diaspora) are calling for change. But there are always a few\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8535\/8688179930_84c804b7da_n.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bytebot.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}