StarTribune isn’t del.icio.us

I mentioned in a previous post that seeing the “Save to del.icio.us” link on the Minneapolis StarTribune web site was one of the things that nudged me in to paying more attention to del.icio.us.

In addition to promoting their articles, I think the Strib would like to be new and trendy. Hey, kids! Look! We’re in to del.icio.us also. Save our articles to del.icio.us and share with all your friends!

(Probably the same motivation that has me doing the same thing on this site.)

So that’s what I did. I bookmarked a review of Snakes on a Plane. (I had my reasons.) And then recently I clicked on the bookmark and got this:

We’re Sorry.

The page you requested could not be found. It may have been moved; more likely it has been removed from our servers. Most articles are automatically purged from startribune.com’s free news database after three weeks. Exceptions include obituaries, recipes and movie reviews.

– http://www.startribune.com/html/404.html

Maybe this is a mistake that it’s no longer available, because the way I read the 404 page is that movie reviews are an exception. I haven’t previously noticed articles disappearing behind a pay-wall there, but then I haven’t bookmarked and revisited them weeks later either. It’s possible they’re trying to start doing more of the monetization thing. But in any case, they have that “Save to del.icio.us” link on every article so that apparently some or most of them will go dark.

What a crock. Save to del.icio.us and help us with some short term promotion, but then in three weeks your link will be useless. This is “social” bookmarking where you get dumped after a brief fling. (I realize typically the social part refers to the sharing of links with others, but if a site actively encourages people to do the bookmarking then it seems to me they’re taking part in the socializing.)

This just highlights an old problem with linking to things on the web. Who knows if they will be around tomorrow? This doesn’t apply to movingtofreedom.org, of course. You can trust me. I’m paid up through next June. Go ahead and save this post to del.icio.us and rest easy knowing you’ll have at least nine months of linking goodness.

I don’t want to delve much in this post in to the question of whether or not the StarTribune should be charging for their articles or if they should be free now and paid later or paid now and free later or any of that. They have the right to try making money.

What I object to is that by encouraging links from a social bookmarking site to their initially free articles, I think they’re making an implicit statement or promise that the articles will be available for others in the community to read for free. Three weeks isn’t enough time for the diffusion and sharing to happen.

I doubt many people would save an article to del.icio.us if they knew the free version would soon disappear, so the conclusion I draw from this is that the newspaper just wants a quick boost to their readership from whatever links they can get. I guess the StarTribune is only interested in a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kind of social experience and isn’t really looking for a commitment right now.

(Unlike this web site. Movingtofreedom.org will cuddle after the link.)