Irish Times reader comments now only possible with social media ID

mike65

Anyone a bit pissed off with what IT has done - Facebook, Twatter and Linkedin profiles are the only ones they accept. I was annoyed when I had to open a DISQUS account for the likes of indo and telegraph that is at least a standalone ID. I draw the line at the above trio!

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/mechanicalturk/2012/05/02/weve-changed-our-commenting-platform-on-irishtimes-com/

coylemj

That disqus ID doesn't work for me and the Telegraph, I haven't been able to submit a comment on the Telegraph site for months despite it telling me that I'm logged in and I agree with your attitude to using the social media logins - no thanks.

fly_agaric

mike65 wrote: »

Anyone a bit pissed off with what IT has done - Facebook, Twatter and Linkedin profiles are the only ones they accept.

Don't you know that anybody who is anybody is a linked in twatterer with a FaceBook (TM) account!

coylemj

coylemj wrote: »

That disqus ID doesn't work for me and the Telegraph, I haven't been able to submit a comment on the Telegraph site for months despite it telling me that I'm logged in and I agree with your attitude to using the social media logins - no thanks.

However you can see the point in doing it this way - it means they don't have to maintain a database of userids and passwords so there's zero administration and they can broadcast every user comment to Twitter and/or Facebook where it will be seen by all of your friends/followers thereby increasing the visitor count to their website from people who click on the links.

Can't argue with the logic, if I had a news website I'd do the same.

flogen

coylemj wrote: »

However you can see the point in doing it this way - it means they don't have to maintain a database of userids and passwords so there's zero administration and they can broadcast every user comment to Twitter and/or Facebook where it will be seen by all of your friends/followers thereby increasing the visitor count to their website from people who click on the links.

Can't argue with the logic, if I had a news website I'd do the same.

As people tend to give their real identities on Facebook or LinkedIn and even Twitter it also makes it slightly more difficult for people to anonymously post abusive or potentially libellous remarks.

The flip side is that it's also more difficult for posters who have a genuine need to be anonymous.

Of course they could just set up a random Twitter account... someone doing it for a reason is likely to do that while someone taking the piss might not bother.

jack presley

I use twitter just to keep up on news/sports sites but have never tweeted. If I send a comment using my twitter account, will it should up as a tweet? Even though I've never tweeted, I do have 12 followers (and they aren't spam ones either) so will they get my comments?

expectationlost

i asked hugh linehan to explain, he said they tend to be more real names, i don't think thats enough of an explaination it doesn't explain why only those 3. why exlude email? so much for the new digtial engagement of the IT, springing things on its users and then saying tough titties if you don't like it. a number of ppl asked on his post and he never replied to them properly either.

ShanePouch

With the real possibility that the Irish Times is on its last financial legs, and rumoured to be running out of cash and time, you can hardly blame them for trying to use social media to increase their reach and sales, and increase their revenue in any way possible.

In a few years we will look back with surprise that the traditional print media will have changed so radically, that familiar titles are no longer around, and the idea of men in white vans driving bundles of newspapers around the country in the early hours of the morning will seem ludicrous.

Unless traditional newspapers find ways to increase their reach, and find lifelines to keep them alive, they will simply cease to exist, and the Irish times is to be applauded that it changed its hostility to new technology by the lunatic policy restricting its access nearly 100% of the world internet population for many years.

jmcc

ShanePouch wrote: »

the Irish times is to be applauded that it changed its hostility to new technology by the lunatic policy restricting its access nearly 100% of the world internet population for many years.

Huh? They screwed up spectacularly. They lost the Irish online news market to RTE and the Independent (and the Sunday Business Post for a while).

Regards...jmcc

ShanePouch

jmcc wrote: »

Huh? They screwed up spectacularly. They lost the Irish online news market to RTE and the Independent (and the Sunday Business Post for a while).

Regards...jmcc

I agree that it was a monumentally stupid decision, although even if it was never made its not clear whether this would have had much impact on there being a different online news market today in Ireland.

Here in the UK, the BBC's website is highly regarded in terms of workability and content, but then the BBC (like RTE) does have a great advantage on its rivals in that it gets oodles and oodles of cash from the government which is denied to its commercial rivals.

I can see a being made under anti competition rules being taken by rivals to the BBC and RTE over this very issue in the future.

SuperInfinity

I'll tell you what's lunatic: this policy.

The main market of the Irish Times nowadays is the over 40s, and in particular the over 50s. Why the hell would they want to have to join Twitter, Facebook or LinkIn to even write a letter to the newspaper? I don't use any of those sites, nor do I want to. I couldn't think of anything more stupid to do than this. Their biggest demographic percentage-wise is probably among old people who don't even know how to use the internet.

How in the world is this going to "increase their sales"? This is just going to make it harder for people to write in. I don't know if you have some sort of complicated psychology and social engineering and minus the quadrupled root of minus 2 theory about how it will actually increase sales, but for my money, it's an obvious step backwards.

ShanePouch

SuperInfinity wrote: »

I'll tell you what's lunatic: this policy.

The main market of the Irish Times nowadays is the over 40s, and in particular the over 50s. Why the hell would they want to have to join Twitter, Facebook or LinkIn to even write a letter to the newspaper? I don't use any of those sites, nor do I want to. I couldn't think of anything more stupid to do than this. Their biggest demographic percentage-wise is probably among old people who don't even know how to use the internet.

How in the world is this going to "increase their sales"? This is just going to make it harder for people to write in. I don't know if you have some sort of complicated psychology and social engineering and minus the quadrupled root of minus 2 theory about how it will actually increase sales, but for my money, it's an obvious step backwards.

Newspaper "sales" used to be about the number of copies sold. Nowadays its more complicated, and it's likely the Irish times expects to see hard copies sold declining pretty rapidly over the coming years, continuing the trend over recent years and probably seeing that trend accelerating. Virtually no one under 30 now buys newspapers except occasionally, and the demographic buying the IT is getting older and older every year, and not being replaced.

By trying to force some of their online traffic through social networking sites, they think they can get more attention from more people on the net, and thus grow their presence there, and thus try to grow their revenue from the net.

It may seem a step back to you, but to the Irish Times it is the only hope they have of surviving. Even then, it remains to be seen if they can survive.