Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"With Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, and, well, the rest of the entire Internet, who needs a physical dictionary anymore? Apparently not enough people to actually make the next version of the Oxford English Dictionary go to the printers. The Oxford English Dictionary, as legendary as it is heavy, is facing a bleak future as there's not much of a market these days for a reference book that weighs 130 pounds."

The heroic dictionary is not alone in this electronic world that threatens its existence. The legendary Encyclopedia and mythical Thesaurus also face extinction. It should be no surprise that while we are still far from the paperless society, more and more of our communication and information is handled digitally. With digital information comes digital processing and the need for a hefty series of books defining each word becomes unnecessary. There still is a place for reference books in the traditional dead tree format, but as the world moves on, having something static works against it. Dictionaries (and the interfaces to them) need to be fluid and easy to access. All that is left is to find a way to encourage people to actually use spell check and to look up the definition of words.

"My argument is simple: blocking ads can be devastating to the sites you love. I am not making an argument that blocking ads is a form of stealing, or is immoral, or unethical, or makes someone the son of the devil. It can result in people losing their jobs, it can result in less content on any given site, and it definitely can affect the quality of content."

Well, maybe not love ads, but come to accept them as the price to pay for viewing websites I enjoy. A long time ago, I too used ad blockers, but these days, I do not bother. I get the whole idea about ads being annoying and intrusive. They can distract from content, slow down your computer and in some strange way, some would make me feel violated. All I want to do is view a web page, and there is this banner that whenever I accidentally mouse over, it says "Hello!!!!!" When it comes down to it, I see it like a website saying, "Here's some content we think you might find interesting. All we ask is that you see a few ads in return." I think that is a pretty reasonable request. Sites that serve obnoxious ads consistently, I do not visit them for a few months, checking back every so often to see if they have changed their ways. Those sites that keep their ads respectful, I regularly visit. If the content of a site is so good that I want to read it, I figure it is worth the price of a few ads. That is my rationale. What is yours?

"Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site."

It had to happen eventually. Newspapers and magazines have tended to have a love-hate relationship with the Internet. On one hand, it opens up a huge market for distribution, but the problem is monetizing all those eyeballs, a persistent problem when it comes to content on the Internet. So The Times has chosen to go with the "freemium" model. Over the years, I've seen various methods tried, and I particularly remember Salon magazine trying to go with a "sponsored" model a few years back, where you would have to watch a few ads for a "day pass." I do not remember it working, though Salon is still around. I have doubts that the New York Times will successful as well with this model. I do not begrudge them wanting to make money and I do believe that traditional content still has a place in this world. Beyond twitters, blogs, vlogs and their kin, there is use for journalists and the articles they write. The problem is journalism, in the classic sense, can cost a lot of money. I only wish I knew of a solution. Any ideas?