Mercury News

Roy

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Feb 17, 2018, 9:56:20 AM2/17/18

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Anyone notice the increased "pay wall" stuff on the Mercury News website?

nooz...@sbcglobal.net

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Feb 17, 2018, 3:29:48 PM2/17/18

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On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 6:56:20 AM UTC-8, Roy wrote:
> Anyone notice the increased "pay wall" stuff on the Mercury News website?

Same with the East Bay Times (same company). If you have an ad blocker try allowing ads. Some sites aren't too intrusive with their ads. The problem is these print institutions lack the kind creative management to the solve the problem of the digital age. You can embed ads that a blocker won't catch as long as they aren't targeted and what everyone gets. But so many still think that targeted ads work though I read an article a few years back in Advertising Age saying they didn't work.

poldy

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Feb 17, 2018, 4:37:31 PM2/17/18

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Their subscriptions must be way down.

Not surprising they will do whatever they can to generate revenues.

Roy

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Feb 18, 2018, 8:50:29 AM2/18/18

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The problem I see is that after reading and article or two, the site
responds that I have used my limit and I have to subscribe.

I was using Chrome with an "incognito window" but that doesn't always
work. The solution I have found so far is to use the Tor browser.

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Julian Macassey

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Feb 19, 2018, 3:40:35 AM2/19/18

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On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 06:50:27 -0700, Roy <monta...@outlook.com> wrote:
>
> I was using Chrome with an "incognito window" but that doesn't always
> work. The solution I have found so far is to use the Tor browser.
>
> https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
>

I love the tor browser. I occaisionally use Opera which
has a built in VPN.

--
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem,
first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by
arseholes - William Gibson

Roy

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Feb 19, 2018, 11:01:11 AM2/19/18

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On 2/19/2018 1:40 AM, Julian Macassey wrote:
> On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 06:50:27 -0700, Roy <monta...@outlook.com> wrote:
>>
>> I was using Chrome with an "incognito window" but that doesn't always
>> work. The solution I have found so far is to use the Tor browser.
>>
>> https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
>>
> I love the tor browser. I occaisionally use Opera which
> has a built in VPN.
>
>
>
>

I use Opera occasionally too but didn't know about the VPN. Thanks!

nooz...@sbcglobal.net

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Feb 19, 2018, 2:01:25 PM2/19/18

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On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 6:56:20 AM UTC-8, Roy wrote:

> Anyone notice the increased "pay wall" stuff on the Mercury News website?

I set the ad blocker I'm using to be off on the East Bay Times and their ads aren't intrusive and load fast. What really irks me is to go to a site and when trying to read a post in a forum or respond to one a late delivered ad steals the focus. This can even happen on sites when the ad blocker is on because they are serving an ad embedded that comes late.

Looks like soon only the rich will get news and the rest of us will have to rely on hear-say. ;-)

sms

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Feb 19, 2018, 5:23:41 PM2/19/18

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I recently met the new, and now former, Mercury News local reporter for
Cupertino, Keith Menconi. A really smart guy, who has a lot of
experience in media. He used to work for radio station in Taipei. He's
Caucasian but speaks Mandarin.

He said that even though he had just been hired, that he wasn't sure how
long he'd be there because there were a lot of staff reductions at BANG
(Bay Area News Group). Sure enough, less than a week after I met him he
had been laid off.

I had met with a Chronicle business reporter last week, and she said to
refer the laid-off BANG reporter because the Chronicle was hiring.

It's a very tough business. We now get the New York Times because the
quality of the Mercury News is so abysmal that my wife didn't want to
get it anymore. But the New York Times is so good that we have them
piling up, unable to keep up.

poldy

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Feb 20, 2018, 12:43:33 AM2/20/18

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Or newspapers will simply go out of business because they can't get
enough people to pay for their content.

Ah back in the day they won prizes for their reporting.

Wonder how many reporters they still have.

I haven't been reading any local papers in a long time. I guess that's
pretty common now. People get news from other sources, including
non-journalistic ones.

This newsgroup started out to share info. about Internet access options
in the Bay Area in the early days of the Internet.

Now we're witnessing the demise of traditional media.

Julian Macassey

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Feb 20, 2018, 8:53:36 PM2/20/18

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On Mon, 19 Feb 2018 21:43:30 -0800, poldy <po...@kfu.com> wrote:
[Murky News]

> Ah back in the day they won prizes for their reporting.

Pity they didn't get one for their "Dark Alliance" story.

>
> Wonder how many reporters they still have.

Pity they don't have Gary Webb anymore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb

>
> This newsgroup started out to share info. about Internet access options
> in the Bay Area in the early days of the Internet.

Soon hopefully info about the lack of net neutrality.

>
> Now we're witnessing the demise of traditional media.

Going the same way as broadcast radio.

--
"They (Microsoft) don't think of original ideas and they don't bring much
culture into their product." - Steve Jobs 1995 TV interview