Comments on: The user-hostile FT

By: IanFraser

IanFraser — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:07:14 +0000

Good article, Felix. I had a pop at the FT’s “embedded” approach to financial coverage in this blog post…. http://www.ianfraser.org/embedded-financ ial-journalism-at-its-worst/

By: dWj

dWj — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 17:08:04 +0000

Gruber’s comment isn’t quite right in this case; telling you that the only words you can link to any FT story is “Financial Times” is definitely not SEO.

By: praxis22

praxis22 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:43:46 +0000

It’s easy enough to get around, especially with Chrome. As for Money supply, I’ve never had an issue with it, opens right up from a Google search. Though I do see your point about it being obnoxious, but that’s just the corporate shtick, the FT is still better than Murdoch’s times in that respect. If you’re having problems with the Google news link, clear out your cookies. Also get rid of DSO’s (flash cookies) again, this is easy to do with Chrome.

By: Setty

Setty — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:27:44 +0000

The worst thing about Tynt (name similar to taint, which is a slang term for an appropriate body part) is that I use the built-in text-to-speech on my Mac to have longer stories read to me while I do other things. These silly scripts add the Tynt Taint to whatever text is being spoken. Obviously they don’t want me listening to the FT — the disclaimer text, which includes the text of the link, is a most annoying way to start a story.

In any case, thank you very much for alerting me to where this pernicious Taint was coming from. I just used AdBlockPlus on Firefox to shut off any script at all that includes “tynt.com.” It’s now much nicer to listen to The New Yorker, too.

By: tedtwong

tedtwong — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:57:49 +0000

Agree that they are a good news source but that’s a separate issue entirely, no?

By: AnonymousChef

AnonymousChef — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:12:10 +0000

Felix,

I doubt this is asking you to do anything you don’t do already. They’re not saying “don’t link” – they’re saying “don’t repost our entire article” and “if you summarize an article, cite it with a link back.”

Yes, its passive aggressive to make the copyright violation claim, but I’d imagine its rather difficult to have different things posted to your clipboard depending on how many paragraphs you copy.

By: nyet

nyet — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:50:11 +0000

I love the FT and they are so much better than any other financial news source. I support them by subscribing and I suggest you do likewise, if you value being well informed on these matters.

By: giraffe

giraffe — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 16:30:29 +0000

I totally agree. Prior to the implementation of their paywall, the FT was my preferred source for financial news by far. And post-paywall I considered subscribing, but didn’t do so once I ran across their hindrances against simple sharing. So now I have found a grouping of alternate sources.
It is truly bizarre to find a business, especially a “virtual goods” business, that actively creates barriers to viral propagation of their services.