What the print media doesn’t understand about the web

Just came across a couple of excellent posts by Scott Karp at Publishing 2.0.

Most applicable to me is his blog post titled What Magazines Still Don’t Understand about the Web — but his earlier What Newspapers Still Don’t Understand About the Web is excellent as well. I found the comments to the mag article particularly enlightening — it’s comforting to see that the debate about whether or not to post content for free when it is being paid for in print publications is taking place in other areas of the world as well.

My take, ripping off Chris Anderson, is that mag content should be free online. People will continue to pay — at least for a time — for the real world privilege of being able to read a magazine cover to cover in the bathtub, but online, they will simply not read anything cover to cover. Looking at my own surfing behaviour, I do read entire articles but generally only one or maybe two at a go — online, there’s always something else to do. Put it up for free and build your business model around something else.