New New Yorker Web Site
The New Yorker (via Jason Kottke):
Beginning this week, absolutely everything new that we publish—the work in the print magazine and the work published online only—will be unlocked. All of it, for everyone. Call it a summer-long free-for-all. Non-subscribers will get a chance to explore The New Yorker fully and freely, just as subscribers always have. Then, in the fall, we move to a second phase, implementing an easier-to-use, logical, metered paywall. Subscribers will continue to have access to everything; non-subscribers will be able to read a limited number of pieces—and then it’s up to them to subscribe. You’ve likely seen this system elsewhere—at the Times, for instance—and we will do all we can to make it work seamlessly.
[…]
Beginning this week, every story we’ve published since 2007 will be available on newyorker.com, in the same easy-to-read format as the new work we’re publishing.
It’s not entirely clear, but it sounds like the articles will all be available in a Web-friendly format. Previously, I had no interest in paying for the digital edition because the only fully accessible articles were the free ones; the ones with the blue padlocks were only readable via a different Web site that essentially looked like giant screenshots of the printed pages.
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"It’s not entirely clear, but it sounds like the articles will all be available in a Web-friendly format. Previously, I had no interest in paying for the digital edition because the only fully accessible articles were the free ones; the ones with the blue padlocks were only readable via a different Web site that essentially looked like giant screenshots of the printed pages."
Are you sure about that?
To the best of my knowledge, there's been no change whatsoever to your issue, except for the free-summer. Before, recent paywalled stories were web-friendly, just as they are now. It was only older archival stories that were on that weird web site. And that hasn't changed either.
(They may have moved stories between 2007 and 'recent' to web-friendly, but I'm not sure on how far back 'recent' used to go My assumption is that 'recent' and web-friendly used to go back 2007, as now, but my confidence in that statement is low.)
Also, FWIW, that weird web site is a bit of a pain, but a reasonably manageable pain. It's set up to let you save a scanned article to your disc as a PDF file with only minor hassle.
Finally, IMHO, you should really just get the dead-tree version of the mag. Far superior form-factor, plus free web access.
@Chucky The previously paywalled stories from recent years are now Web-friendly. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens to them after the summer?
I did subscribe to the dead-tree version, but I really prefer putting the Web-friendly versions in Instapaper, which was not possible for all articles even if you paid.
