Where these august publications fell down was in their online presentation. Someone running these businesses hasn’t figured out that their online business model is advertising. They’ve made it impossible to link to their articles directly (ie, drive money-making traffic to them).

And BusinessWeek is far, far worse. BusinessWeek actually asked us specifically *not* to link to the article. Yes, that’s right, an ad-driven publication doesn’t want us to drive traffic to them. They were kind enough to point us to their User Agreement where, sure enough, they prohibit deep linking. Talk about stupid.

I can’t imagine what must be going through the minds of the stellar reporters and editors

but I’ll bet “frustration” is only the very tip of the iceberg.

To spend all of this time and energy on their articles, only to have the crazy business people make it impossible for people to read their work, must be incredibly trying.