Hmmm. Here’s something I hadn’t noticed till today. … I receive several e-mail newsletters from MediaPost Publications,
each of which include headlines and descriptions of the day’s stories.
When you click on a story, it appears; there’s no request for user
registration to read the article.
What I just noticed is that when you’re at one of these articles and
click on a related story, you hit a registration-request page. Want to
read more of the site? Then register.
For one thing, I was surprised to realize my own behavior: I read
articles from several of MediaPost’s 11 trade publications via their
e-mail newsletters, and via RSS feeds and links I spot in blogs. But I
don’t click elsewhere on those sites after reading the article I’ve
been pointed toward.
Is my typical behavior? I’m not sure. But my own experience makes me
wonder about the wisdom of this registration scheme. Here I am, a
longtime MediaPost Publications reader, and I’ve never registered.
What I think would be better is if MediaPost asked me to register —
voluntarily — each time I came to one of its articles. It would offer
some sort of incentive for me to register (including making those
annoying request blurbs go away).
I’d always thought that it was smart to let people view an article when
they clicked through to it via a link from a search engine or blog,
then require registration when they went to explore the rest of your
site. Realizing my own behavior, I now think perhaps that’s not the
wisest strategy. Ergo, I once again urge publishers to start deploying
voluntary registration with incentives.
