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SI's complete story archive going online

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Small Town Guy, Mar 19, 2008.

  1. Small Town Guy

    Small Town Guy Well-Known Member

    According to this, every word SI's ever published will be available in this new online feature its starting. Wow. I'll be spending way, way, way too much time there. It will be available starting on Thursday.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/business/media/17mags.html?dpc
     
  2. Barsuk

    Barsuk Active Member

    That is incredible. I can't believe this is going to be free, though I'm extremely happy about it. What a resource "The Vault" will be.
     
  3. Dave_Wasson

    Dave_Wasson New Member

    Especially if there is a "Gary Smith" keywordable search.

    dw
     
  4. Small Town Guy

    Small Town Guy Well-Known Member

    The search part of it should be tremendous. I can't wait to read all of the old stuff from Jenkins, DeFord, Kram, Curry Kirkpatrick's college hoops, etc. I saw another story somewhere that said stories post-1995 might not be completely available yet, because of issues with photo rights. I couldn't tell if it was the stories, or just the photos from that time that would be affected.
     
  5. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    Tremendous idea. Can't believe it's free because I'd pay for that kind of access.
     
  6. They were promising this for awhile on CD-Rom, back when people actually still used that stuff. It never happened.

    I can't wait. This will be incredible. It will be a nice reminder of how good the magazine used to be.
     
  7. playthrough

    playthrough Moderator Staff Member

    Me too. And I'm baffled that SI doesn't feel the same way. I read the link but I still don't see the benefits of "moving up in search engines" and "attracting (free) readers" as opposed to collecting cold, hard cash. Even if it's just a one-time fee of $20 or whatever for lifetime access to the vault, I'd pay that so fast the suits at Time Warner would have it for Happy Hour today.

    Don't get me wrong, as a reader and journo this is solid gold. But the business side of it makes no sense to me. Maybe I'm a lousy businessman. But if I'm SI and someone says "why can't I get your archive for free?" I'll say "you can. Go find the bound volumes at a major library."
     
  8. Mr. Magazine

    Mr. Magazine New Member

    This is just terrific. Thanks for posting. I think one of the first stories I'll go back and read is Deford's piece about Little Irvy, the two-ton traveling whale. I know that's not nearly his best, but for some reason it just popped into my head.
     
  9. forever_town

    forever_town Well-Known Member

    Hmm.

    There are some very memorable SI stories from my youth that I'd love to read again. This would be awesome.
     
  10. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    That's exactly what I said when I read the link.
     
  11. WriteThinking

    WriteThinking Well-Known Member

    It seems likely SI hopes that any readers attracted by these archives will not be free readers for long -- that they will be drawn in for subscriptions, as well as just for the all-important web clicks, eyeballs, search lists, and, of course, potential ad sales, etc., based on those numbers.

    This also has to qualify as yet another attempt to reach the coveted younger audience, perhaps even the much-younger readers, who have probably never even read any of SI's older stories or magazine issues that we remember and value so much.

    And those kids are not about to go to a library, for a hard copy of anything.

    Or pay for online access to it, either.

    We need to change (and charge) before they will.
     
  12. awriter

    awriter Active Member

    I'll definitely be spending way too much time on that site. I'm wondering how quickly issues will be archived and if it pays to subscribe to the magazine anymore.
     
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