The New York Times is launching new video ads to convince people they should pay for its content. Here’s a thought. If the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal for that matter, want to be paid what they’re worth, how about giving subscribers a set price they can depend on? A price that doesn’t overcharge the digital subscriber? Below, a case study on the deliberate pricing confusion both publications pursue.

How I Got My WSJ On

Way back in 2009, I received some junk mail from the Wall Street Journal offering me the paper for $100 per year. For me, it was a no brainer. I love reading a print newspaper. Getting a high-quality paper six days per week for cheaper than I could get my own local paper, the Los Angeles Times? Bring it on, especially since I’d also get easy access past the long-existing WSJ paywall.

After a year, my subscription expired. I got a few notices, but I balked at paying the $250 (if I recall right) that the WSJ wanted me to pay to renew. If it was worth $100 for an entire year, what made it suddenly worth 2.5 times that amount the next?

Of course, the answer — in part — was that I’d been given an introductory rate. The goal was to get me hooked. Unfortunately for the WSJ, I didn’t need the paper that bad to stay hooked for the higher price. I chose not to renew.

That didn’t stop the papers from coming. Nope, for three months, they continue to be delivered. It was even inconvenient that I couldn’t put them on a vacation hold, since I no longer had an official account.

About a week after they stopped coming, I got a phone call. It was the WSJ, wanting me to renew and offering me that same $100 rate. I was happy to take that again.

In late 2011, the notices came again that my subscription was expiring. By this point, I’d learned that if I just let the paper expire, I’d probably continue to get it for free. If I didn’t, inevitably I’d get a call urging me to renew at a lower rate. So, I let the subscription expire.

The call didn’t come soon enough for me, however. In January, there was an article that I really wanted to read. It also wasn’t one that I could unlock using the usual trick of going through Google News. I ended up renewing at the $260 (or so) per year regular rate. Actually, the regular rate is even higher than that, as I’ll get into further below.

Why Do You Want To Keep Overcharging Me?

Success for the WSJ, as I even noted in a later article explaining why that Google News trick had been deliberately blocked as part of a changing policy with the Wall Street Journal (see WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free). Restricting the content got me to renew, even at a higher price.

Success was short-lived, however. About two weeks ago, my phone rang. It was the WSJ (well, a telemarketer working for them) offering me a $100 per year deal. Did I want this? The rep was very eager for me to take it. So was I. Naturally, I signed up. At the very end, I asked what about that subscription I’d just renewed.

Much confusion then followed. I was told that I couldn’t have the offer, if I had a subscription already. I was puzzled. Surely the Wall Street Journal should know that I already had a subscription, right?

The telemarketer really didn’t care. She’s stumbled into an area that was clearly off the playbook, with a subscription that probably wouldn’t count to her quota, so simply wanted me off the phone. She told me I couldn’t have the deal, and that I’d need to call the Wall Street Journal directly to follow-up. Funny how quickly she went from being the Wall Street Journal to having nothing to do with them.

I hung in there. While we were talking, I looked up my account online. Here’s exactly what it said, except for me removing my account number:

See under “Status?” My account was shown as “Active” but with an expiration date of 2/23/2012, which at the time the telemarketer had called me had passed two months prior. I said that as far as I could tell, my subscription had expired two months ago.

That was enough for her, in the end, to declare she could let my subscription go through. A few days ago, I received a paper “renewal acknowledgement” of it. Actually, I received two. Going online today, one renewal was for the account I renewed in January. Another was for a “renewal” of the new account the telemarketer had created for me. For the past two weeks, the WSJ has maintained two different subscriptions for me, under the same exact name, at the same exact address. I’ve been double-dipped! And I’ve only gotten a single paper delivered each day!

Hey, I’m not complaining. I got a bargain on that second renewal. The WSJ can keep the extra $10 or so it made during my double-dip period. I called today, and my January subscription was cancelled. My “new” one is good through April of next year. I’m happy.

Really, You Want Me To Unsubscribe To Save?

Of course, I’d have been happier if I hadn’t gone through this in the first place. Why not offer me a reasonable price in the first place? Why train me to think it makes more sense for me to just cancel? I’ll get back to some answers on this, but let’s talk about the New York Times now.

Last March, I took the New York Times to task over its paywall. The pricing made little sense. It limited visits from search engines but not from social media for archaic reasons that seemed stupid. But I also signed-up for a subscription. I appreciate good journalism. The New York Times has some of that. I thought I’d show support with my pocketbook.

I enjoyed getting the paper each day, and the initial rate made it a good deal. I think I paid about $4 per week or around $200 per year.

Later that year, I realized my rate had doubled. Ah, yes. The introductory rate was only for the first 6 months. After that, there was an increase to around $400 per year.

That was too much. I already had the Wall Street Journal coming, along with the Los Angeles Times. I didn’t need the New York Times delivered as well. In fact, the main reason I was getting the print edition was because it was cheaper to do that for digital access than pay for ONLY digital access.

I called, to see if I could get a better rate, but I was told that was only possible if I let my subscription lapse. Yes, the New York Times would rather have me not read its paper for six months than to continue reading it and seeing all those overpriced print ads.

Please Come Back….

Fine, I let it lapse. Then about three weeks ago, the NYT emailed that it wanted me back. From what it sent:

Oooh! A special offer. That I was selected for unlike all those other suckers out there. Because I’m special. So special that I can 50% off the regular price of any digital package for 12 weeks:

Of course, when the special 12 week/three month rate expires, I’m right back to that regular rate that made me quit in the first place. Which may or may not be cheaper than if I didn’t take the offer.

The New York Times Subscription Pricing Matrix

To figure that out, I have to literally fire up a spreadsheet:

Oh dear, oh dear, what to do? What am I in the mood for? If I want to pay the least — and have no idea that I can simply tweet any article to myself to bypass the paywall — I guess I can shell out $195 per year for web and smartphone access.

If I’m really into reading through a tablet app, I can go up to $260. But darnation, what if I want to read on both my phone and tablet? The technology required to make that happen costs about $140 more. I need to pay $400.

At that rate, I might as well pay to have the damn paper delivered each weekday. If I do that, then I actually save $55 and get unlimited digital tossed in for free. That calls into question the value of the digital subscription. How on earth does the New York Times find it costs less to throw a physical paper on my doorstep each day than to sell me a pure digital subscription?

Again, I’ll get back to that. Meanwhile, the introductory offers are all confusing. Online, there’s a four week discount. The email offer I received gives me a 12 week discount. If you go print, you get a 12 week discount. Anyone thinking they wanted to do digital only, but who is really worried about the money, might be better off taking the 12 week print weekday+digital offer, then switching after that. You’ll save a lot over the additional two months.

Is your head hurting? Mine sure is, and I haven’t even mentioned that an email I got last year from the New York Times still works to give me a 26 week intro period on digital products.

The Wall Street Journal Subscription Pricing Matrix

Now let me go back to the Wall Street Journal. Compared to the New York Times, the pricing is a refreshing bit of simplicity. You can buy digital-only or print that includes digital access. There’s none of this smartphone versus tablet nonsense. No, the Wall Street Journal saves the nonsense for prices it pitches across different marketing channels:

Online, the WSJ pushes either digital or print+digital. By phone, it pitched print, as I’ve explained. Then there’s direct mail. Sitting on my desk are two separate offers, both sent to the same name (me) and to the same address that my existing subscription is registered to, enticing me to subscribe at an $11.99 per month rate:

That’s not an intro rate, either. It lasts as long as I act within five days. I’ll tuck these offers away. Somehow, I suspect in a year, I’ll find they’ll still work if I need to use them.

Of course, I probably won’t. In a year, my intro rate that the telemarketer gave me will expire. I’ll probably let the paper lapse again, then I’ll get a call, and, well, I think we know the score.

The Overpriced Digital Paywall

Let’s recap. Net neanderthals encouraged by Google to believe everything is free were so harming major papers like the Wall Street Journal with their worthless visits that we even had to have an FTC workshop/hearing to let Rupert and Arianna square-off about what’s fair.

Meanwhile, the New York Times finally unveiled its paywall last year just in time for publishers to start deciding that getting some of those ad views wasn’t so bad, so let’s leave a billion holes in the paywall, because heaven-forbid we don’t get traffic from places like Facebook or Twitter, when people complain about the paywall blocking them.

Let’s do all this and assume no one will figure out that we’re charging less for digital access, in some cases, even when we assume the physical costs of actually delivering a paper.

Our readers are intelligent enough to be told they must pay to support quality journalism but apparently not intelligent enough to figure out that it shouldn’t cost $55 less to have the New York Times delivered each weekday and get digital access versus digital-only access. Or that it shouldn’t cost only $88 per year more for the Wall Street Journal to have someone throw a paper on my doorstep six days a week versus just giving me a digital product.

Again, take in the numbers:

• Cost of digital New York Times: $455
• Cost of digital plus weekday delivery of New York Times: $55 LESS than digital
• Cost of digital Wall Street Journal: $413
• Cost of digital plus daily delivery of Wall Street Journal: only $88 more than digital

The Undervalued Digital Reader & Stupid “Circulation” Figures

The digital products are overpriced compared to the print products. That’s because, in all likelihood, a print subscriber is still stupidly deemed worth more to advertisers, even though I’d wager most of us ignore most of those print ads.

Heck, digital readers are so undervalued that the New York Times can count us up to four times, it seems. Buy a print subscription to the New York Times, and you’re counted once. But since you have a digital subscription, you’re also counted as a web subscriber, a tablet subscriber and a smartphone subscriber. From the New York Times about recent circulation figures:

Under audit rules, newspapers can count paid digital subscribers more than once if they have daily access to digital content on multiple platforms like mobile apps or tablets as part of a bundled subscription package.

Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but then again, it doesn’t matter. The circulation figures are an artifact from the past. They are a figure used by sales reps to convince advertisers how many people view their ads, as if those 800,000 print subscribers to the New York Times look at each and every print ad. Now another 800,000 digital subscribers can be added to the mix (many of whom might also be print subscribers), so the numbers get bigger but still mean little.

If you’re talking digital, you’re talking pageviews. And if you’re talking digital ads, then you know the exact impressions of those ads plus some sense of engagement by clickthrough or other metrics. So why count “digital circulation,” and what’s it really mean?

In the end, it makes lots of sense for newspapers to have a balanced model of ad revenue along with subscription income. Paywalls aren’t bad. I’ve run them myself. But what is bad is overcharging your digital subscribers in a way you’d never do to print ones, simply because you’ve overvalued the print ones for too long.

I guess I can add a story to the many out there about someone who tracks down a lost phone using a Find My Phone-type of service. In this case, it was my son’s. I tracked it down to the exact classroom where the kid who took it was sitting.

My son calls when he arrives at school each day, so we know he arrived safely. Today, he left his phone out on his bike after locking up and heading to class. By the time he realized his mistake, the phone was gone. The case was still there, right on his handlebars. The phone itself had been taken out. Clearly, it was stolen.

When he called to tell me from the school office. I fired up the Find My iPhone service from Apple. That’s enabled on his phone, but there was no recent location.

About 45 minutes later, a location appeared on the school campus, out on the PE area. I got hopeful. It seemed likely another student had taken it. I triggered the phone to ring, and I also sent a message to it asking that it get turned into the campus office for a reward. Then I headed over to the school, with my MacBook Air and a mifi in hand, so I could keep tracking.

In the school office, there was much amazement that you could even track a phone like this. I waited for someone to take me out to the PE area, on the off-chance that maybe the phone had been ditched there, while we watched the screen. I was explaining more about how the feature worked when suddenly, the location changed again. This time, it jumped to a block of buildings with only three classrooms.

One of the office administrators walked me down to the block. Only two had classes in them, one far away from where the location pin-point was showing. So, we went to the other class and asked the teacher if anyone had turned in a phone. No one had turned in a phone, but he had confiscated one after someone’s phone rang.

Yep, it was my son’s. The kid who took it must have switched it on when outside, turned it off, then turned it on again when he got back into his classroom. It got my message to ring, and since you can’t have phones switched on while on campus, she’d known something was wrong to took it from him.

If you don’t have a Find My Phone service on your smartphone yet, do turn it on. They do work. My recent CNET column explains more about this: These ‘find my phone’ services will ease your mind.

I’m not on Hacker News a lot, but occasionally I do comment. When I do, you’ll see me there as sullivandanny. I’m also dannysullivan, but I can’t have that account. Forgot my password, and that’s that, apparently.

When you create a Hacker News account, unlike most places I register with, you’re not required to provide an email address. You enter the name you want, a password, push submit — if the name’s not taken, there you go.

I made my dannysullivan account 1,398 days ago. That’s nearly four years ago. I created the account to make the only comment I’ve ever done with it, on this discussion, about a story I wrote on Search Engine Land over the default search settings in Firefox allowing Bing to be one of the providers.

About two years ago, I got back into participating occasionally on Hacker News. I couldn’t remember my password to get back into my old account. There was no password recovery tool, either. As it turns out, this is because I never provided an email address after the fact. If you don’t add an email address afterward, then there’s no prompt to change your password, as there’s no way to email you a recovery option.

That makes sense, but it’s not explained. If you try to login, and there’s no email address on file, you don’t get told that. You just get told, “Bad login.”

If you’re like me, and have forgotten your password and never provided an email address, that’s why you can’t get back to your account. “Bad login” effectively means, create a new account.

I did finally got advice about all this from someone at Y Combinator last week. I’d also hoped that I could convince them to let me change my account name to dannysullivan, since that’s the name I use in many other places — plus, it’s not like the “other” dannysullivan on Hacker News is using it. But since I can’t authenticate that it’s really me (despite it being pretty bloody obvious that it is), no luck.

Again, makes sense, fair enough. Even if it sucks.

In hopes of improving the often sad state of PR pitches, I’m beginning a series dissecting the bad one I get. I’ll start with the “conversation” pitch. This one almost always goes in the trash.

“Would you be open to a conversation with….”

“I’d be happy to coordinate a conversation….”

“Would you’d be interested in a conversation with….”

No, I’m not interested in having a conversation with whomever you’re pitching, unless that person is an extremely senior executive from one of the major companies I cover. You want me to have a conversation with Larry Page? Awesome. I’m there. Mark Zuckerberg? Sign me up. I’ll bring flowers. Someone I’ve never heard of from a company equally unknown to me? What are you thinking?

Seriously, what ARE you thinking? Is anyone sitting around looking at their inbox and the list of stories already on their plate and thinking, “You know what I wish? I wish I could just shove all this away and take 45 minutes to an hour to talk to someone about whatever they want, on something I’ll probably not write about.”

By the way, never say you want to have a quick 5 minute call. No one does a 5 minute call.

I deal with specifics. Is there a breaking news story? Is there a trend story I’m likely to write? I want pitches that deal with these specifics. The “let’s have a conversation” pitch isn’t specific. It’s a big, gooey mess that I don’t really know what to do with, other that to toss it in the trash.

I promise. Send a good pitch about something unique or different that your company has done, something that has a news angle, and that’s what makes me want to have a conversation. And I’ll ask for it. Maybe I’ll even bring flowers.

Like many, I’m sure, I read with sadness the news that the Encyclopedia Britannica was closing yesterday (only the print edition, as it turns out). Then surprise, as I didn’t realize EB still existed. I sure never found it when helping the kids with their science projects. Perhaps there’s a lesson there?

Helping the kids during science fair time each year always makes me chuckle because of the requirement they make use of an encyclopedia as one of several resources. The school’s instructions reassure that an online encyclopedia is fine. Phew, because the only print one in our house is an old British set from like 1920 that makes you laugh to read it.

Wikipedia is OK, we’re told. That’s what we always use as one of the sources. Because, you know, what other encyclopedia are we going to use?

This year’s project involves a Newton’s Cradle. We’re working on it right now. Do a search for Newton’s Cradle, and what do you get tops at Google? Yeah, this Wikipedia page:

So there you go, that’s the encyclopedia requirement covered.

If the Encyclopaedia Britannica has a page about Newton’s Cradles, I can’t find it within Google. Heck, I can’t find it using EB’s own search feature, though I do get an awesome amount of Google ads:

Now that I’m reminded that Encyclopedia Britannica still exists, I’ll probably do the $70 subscription, so that my kids and I have access to it. But, I suspect I’ll be the rarity.

Instead, if EB is really going”all-out digital,” as it writes today, then I’d sure like to find more of its content when I’m using the primary research tools that most people who seek information do: search engines, either Google or Bing. That means putting more of its content out online.

That potentially cuts into the subscription income. But there are ways to make some of the content visible and keep some back to still make subscriptions viable. I hope they’ll be explored. We could use a good alternative to Wikipedia, which means a good visible alternative, not one lost in the corner of the web.

Postscript: I should add that one key reason, I belatedly realized, that I don’t find much EB content is that it simply might not write about as many topics as Wikipedia. It does appear to have some articles that are available, such as this one on Slovakia – which is indeed listed in Google. It just doesn’t rank well for a search on “slovakia.”

As for why it doesn’t, I (or others) would have to do a lot of digging into the structure of the site. But the chief reason is probably because unlike Wikipedia, few think to look for content on EB and therefore link to it. Links play an important voting mechanism for pages to do well with Google.

The more content EB has out — both in terms of topics is doesn’t already cover, as well as content that might be held back, the more successful it should do IF people start exploring and linking over to it.

Occasionally, you can watch how a story you’ve broken spreads to other news outlets. Disappointingly, that can mean watching it spread without your originating story getting the credit. My story last week of the “Spreading Romney” site is a great/sad example of this.

Last week, I wrote a story at Search Engine Land about a new site that rose to the top results on Google and Bing for a search on “romney.” You can read the story yourself here: Now, Mitt Romney Has A Santorum-Like Bing & Google Problem.

Before I wrote that story, there were virtually no news articles for a search on “spreading romney.” I know, because I’d done that search to figure out how the site came to be.

From Being Cited (Thank You!)

It’s a different story today. There’s plenty of coverage out there, and it’s likely to grow. Some places saw my story and gave it credit. Thank you! These include:

• The Atlantic
• The Daily Beast
• MSNBC’s Red Tape Chronicles
• Seattle PI
• Newser

To Being Lost

Other outlets saw one of the places that cited my original story and rather than citing me instead cited the secondary source.

It’s a tough call here. If you found something from a particular source, it’s nice to give them a “via” or “hat tip” link. But if you don’t cite the originating source, that can cause it to get lost.

Consider how Comedy Central wrote about it. It cites The Atlantic, rather than my piece. I miss out on some of those potential readers. Worse, it’ll really break my heart if this type of thing happens again:

That was Stephen Colbert talking about the Google accuses Bing of copying it story that I broke last year. Yeah, that made Comedy Central. See that arrow? That’s my name even appearing during the show. My kids were thrilled. But see the story? From PC World, not the original from Search Engine Land.

At least PC World cited the original. But when only the secondary source gets cited — as happens with New York Magazine’s article giving the credit to the Daily Beast — the original gets lost.

To Not Getting Mentioned At All

Still, credit to Comedy Central and New York Magazine for providing some attribution about how they came across this news item. Over at Time, the magazine apparently just discovered the story out of the blue. The Time story makes no mention about why or how it suddenly stumbled onto the news.

Over at Daily Kos, it links to what The Raw Story wrote, which in turn has a hat tip to the Boise Weekly, with a story here. Seriously? The Boise Weekly was its source?

Turns out, The Boise Weekly got it from me, almost certainly. I can tell, because they have my screenshot. No link to my story. No mention that the screenshot, complete with the arrow pointing out the key listing, was taken without permission. Just taken.

Well, it’s not like The Boise Weekly isn’t in bad company. After all, the Daily Mail did a similar thing to me in 2010, and the screenshot they took remains up despite me contacting them at least twice. Oh, and no attribution, either.

Giving credit is extra work. It’s not always easy to know who to credit. But it’s the right thing to do, and should be done.

Postscript (8am PT): Still no word back from the Boise Weekly on providing any credit. I’d also contacted the Raw Story, which linked to them, saying:

On your story here:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/13/spreading-romney-satire-leaks-into-candidates-top-google-results/

You credit the Boise Weekly. Believe me, I appreciate you trying to credit another publication. Many don’t. The problem is, the Boise Weekly didn’t credit my story that they summarized — not to mention stole the screenshot from.

I’d love if you could cite my original story in addition to or rather than those folks. You’ll find it here:

http://searchengineland.com/now-mitt-romney-has-a-santorum-like-bing-google-problem-111061

Note again the screenshot in both, how they both say “Costa Mesa” as the location. That’s in Southern California, where I am, not in Idaho

Publisher Roxanne Cooper came back with this thoughtful reply:

I seriously doubt you invented the meme at search engineland. And If so, you need to contact Boise Weekly.

My response back:

I didn’t invent the meme. The meme was invented Jack Shepler, who I cited in my story. To date, I’m the only news outlet that’s spoken to him, that I know of.

He created it back in January in hopes of ranking on Google. But no news outlet reported him actually getting there until I did, last week.

That’s the news story that you’re reporting off the Boise Weekly, that in turn was picking it up off of my story – complete with my illustration.

It’s pretty obvious if you’d taken the time to look. Clearly you didn’t.

I’ve been in contact with Boise Weekly already, but I thought I’d also contact Raw Story directly, given that since you do H/T links, you seem to want to provide credit where credit is due. If you’re happy crediting a story that took someone else’s illustration, I guess that’s disappointing.

I’m not getting my hopes up the Raw Story will provide any credit, which in the grand scheme of things means little. The attitude about credit is far more important.

Postscript 2 (9am PT): Boise Weekly wrote to say:

First: I apologize. The image we published most certainly should not have been posted without credit and permission and I’ve removed the image from our website.

However, this story first came up on our radar after NY Mag wrote about it and a quick Google search showed it had been reported widely:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/romney-means-to-defecate-in-terror.html

While I like to believe dailykos.com and rawstory.com read Boise Weekly my guess is their reporters stumbled across the story the same way ours did.

They’ve since dropped the screenshot and left the story without any attribution. The New York Magazine story, as I explained, linked to the Daily Beast with attribution. The Daily Beast linked to my story.

All I wanted to do was share a funny “Downton Abbey Meets Spike TV” skit that was on Saturday Night Live this week. Unfortunately, there’s no authorized version of the sketch online from NBCUniversal. That made me hesitate, but apparently it wasn’t a problem for iVillage, an NBCUniversal-owned site. Nor was it an issue for Time, owned by internet piracy hating Time Warner. Come along. This is a sad tour of failure all around.

NBC: No Skit For You

You’d think the sketch would be available on the SNL site itself. You’d be wrong. Here’s what I see at the moment on the video page:

The skit’s not listed.

Hulu: No Sketch For You

Well, how about Hulu, which has the awesome ability to let you share particular segments out of a full-length episode. Here’s the “full-length” episode of SNL from this weekend at Hulu, with this message at the bottom:

The message reads:

Full episodes of SNL consist of material that is cleared for online streaming. Some sketches and musical performances may be omitted due to various restrictions.

As it turns out, the Downton Abbey skit appears to be one of those omitted sketches. I went through the episode that Hulu provides and couldn’t find it.

Is It Available Anywhere?

Oh dear. I’m unable to share that sketch legally, it appears. Or at least share it in a way that wouldn’t get challenged by NBCUniversal as not being fair use. You know, like this example that was put on YouTube:

That, of course, hasn’t stopped others from doing so. Here are plenty of places the video is available, as found through Google Video:

Time (Of Time Warner): We’ll Give It To You

Look at the second listing. See the URL, newsfeed.time.com. Yes, as in Time.com. As in Time, the magazine and online web site owned by Time Warner — which backed the SOPA anti-piracy bill. What do we find there? This:

There’s the skit! It’s not hosted by Time (of Time Warner) itself. Rather, it’s hosted on Google’s YouTube. Time is simply embedding the clip, on a page with Google ads at the bottom (those are the “Sponsored Links” that are showing).

So Time is helping support the same type of unauthorized posting of content that its parent Time Warner is concerned about — and happy to blame Google for — and doing all this while earning some money from Google.

More Media Outlets Will Give It To You

Hmm. If Time Warner-owned Time did this, could any other media outlets have done so? Yes. Here’s a short list:

• The Huffington Post
• Perez Hilton
• MSNBC
• The Los Angeles Times
• The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Radio Times
• TV.com (owned by CBS)
• iVillage (owned by NBCUniversal)

iVillage (of NBCUniversal) Will Give It To You

Wait. iVillage is owned by NBCUniversal? You mean that NBCUniversal might be argued to have helped pirate itself?

You betcha. Here’s the page:

There’s the unauthorized video, embedded at the bottom of a story on an NBCUniversal web site.

But Back At NBC: No Skit For You

Hey, how about watching the skit as part of the full-length episode that NBC provides on its own site? It doesn’t appear you can do that, either. I’ve gone through it (and sat through the same “Star Wars: The Old Republic” ad about 10 times in doing so). That sketch doesn’t appear to be there. Why not? Apparently, it didn’t air on the West Coast — that might be part of all this.

The Fail Recap

Have you kept up with all the fail going on here? Let me recap:

• No one can watch the sketch as part of the episode NBC/Universal provided for free on broadcast TV, because it’s been cut
• No one can share an authorized version of the sketch, because NBC/Universal hasn’t yet provided one
• Those paying for Hulu Plus can’t even view the clip through one of NBC/Universal’s authorized channels
• Media outlets wanting to write about it, not having an authorized version, effectively said screw it, we’ll link to an unauthorized one
• One of those media outlets was owned by Time Warner, a major opponent of online piracy
• Another of those media outlets was owned by NBC/Universal, so effectively helped promote piracy of NBC/Universal’s own content.

Now Enjoy Until It Gets Pulled

Now go watch the sketch while you can, which was damn funny. Three daughters. One hot. One way hot. And the other one:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Postscript: See Why You Can’t See SNL’s Great “Game of Thrones” Sketch On NBC.com on AllThingsD for what likely happened to the SNL Downton Abbey skit — probably pulled over some rights issue. I did try for an answer from NBC, but they never answered.

Rupert, my son had a simple request. “Daddy, can we watch last week’s episode of The Simpsons?” No, son, we can’t. You can blame Rupert Murdoch for that.

Rupert, I know you’re all upset about all those SOPA & PIPA protests last week. Why, without them, how will you keep all your shows from being accessible to people who just want to pirate them for free through things like Google TV.

Here’s the thing. Go look in a mirror. See that guy looking back at you? Put a big dose of the blame on him. Because he makes people like me, who are already paying you three times to watch The Simpsons, to end up thinking maybe you just really want us to watch pirated content instead.

Pay You Three Times, Shame On Me

That’s right. I pay you three times for The Simpsons. First, I get it broadcast over the air. That’s me paying you for it, because the airwaves are mine — not yours. You’re simply allowed to lease them from the public. You’re getting a piece of that spectrum from me. In return, I expect you to deliver me valuable content through it. Well done with The Simpsons.

But you know, it’s easy to miss things broadcast live over the air. Also, my signal is pretty bad. So I pay a second time, to DirecTV, to get exactly the same content you send over the air to me through satellite TV. I get a better picture. I get the ability to DVR episodes to watch later. And I pay something like $125 per month for my subscription, some of which goes into your pocket.

That brings me to my third way of paying: Hulu Plus. I don’t DVR everything. Somehow, I missed The Simpsons when it started up again this fall. But Hulu Plus has turned into a lifesaver in these cases. It has let me catch-up on programs. It’s been well worth the $7 per month I pay for it, some of which, again, goes directly into your pocket.

The Simpsons: Web Only?

And now to tonight. My son fired up Hulu Plus, so we could watch The Simpsons, as we have in the past. But no luck — he got a “web only” message. Turns out, I discovered after doing a little searching with your least favorite search engine, last year you started limited next-day episodes.

Whatever you did, it’s clearly gotten worse. Apparently, I can’t watch it on Hulu at all through my TV:

Despite paying for Hulu Plus, I cannot watch The Simpson on any device like my Roku player that is designed to play The Simpsons direct to my TV.

I gather this is because you don’t want me to buy Hulu Plus and stop paying for DirecTV, right? I get that. But it’s not like I have the same option to watch archived episodes on DirecTV, If they’re offered on demand, they are impossible to find.

I can’t even authorize my Hulu account to know that I’m paying DirecTV already, as I apparently could if I had a Dish account. Why not? Who knows. You or DirecTV or Hulu are all probably fighting with each other over rights issues.

But hey, it’s not like I can get HBO GO on my Hulu, either. Despite paying for HBO through DirecTV, they don’t let me enable my Roku with it, either.

Lesson? Search For TV On The Web

Now what have you taught my 13 year old, who wants to watch last week’s episode? That he should fire up his computer, because if he does that — and sits through the 2 minute load time for The Simpsons web site, you’ll give him the episode for free.

Why would you do this? Think. What’s a teenager like him likely to do, if they’re looking for The Simpsons, if you don’t offer it through easy, safe, direct-to-TV options like my Roku? He’ll search for it through things like Google and perhaps find it, in this case. But if you don’t offer it, since you’ve driven him and other kids to think they should search, maybe they’ll keep searching until they find some place that does offer it.

Now, if I really wanted to watch last week’s episode, on my TV and without firing up my laptop and digging out the HDMI cable, I could buy it from Amazon or Apple iTunes. But don’t you think paying four times for the same content is a bit much?

Blocking TV Devices Promotes The Piracy You Hate

Let me end with Google TV. Remember at CES? How upset you were to learn (you’re just learning this?), that if someone searches for video content on Google TV, they might reach pirated content?

Hey, I’ve used Google TV from the beginning, from before you and the other networks blocked it. Before you did this, the Google TV search results sent me directly to your web site, where I could watch your content directly from you, exactly as I could if I wanted to hook-up my computer to my TV. That’s because, after all, Google TV is really just a really small computer.

Thanks to your blocking, they don’t even bother to list your site, because why do it? It’s not like it works for those who use it. Instead, it pretty much searches the web — which lists things you might not like.

It’s not right, Rupert. Finding the TV content I want shouldn’t be this complicated, especially for someone who is actually paying you. Fix it.

This might be the last year I renew with ZoneAlarm. I like the security software and have used it for years. But they crazy and somewhat misleading renewal process is making me feel less than valued.

My subscription was nearing its end, so I got this warning telling me to renew. Clicking through, the price was $60. Now that’s about double what I paid initially. It was also $15 more than I could buy the service new.

I know from experience that if you don’t renew, you get offered a substantial discount. But I didn’t want to play games. I just wanted to renew then and there at the lowest price I knew they’d offer me.

I hit the web site looking for a contact form. They don’t have one. Everything is through chat. That’s it.

OK, I chatted. Told the rep the situation. Was told there was nothing that could be done. They couldn’t even extend my current subscription at a new price.

So, when subscription did expire, I purchased a new one for $45. I thought about waiting, but my ZoneAlarm software icon kept displaying an image giving the impression it wasn’t really working. It does, thought anti-virus definitions will slowly get outdated.

Still, being paranoid, I renewed. And then an hour later, in case a 60% off request to renew.

Sigh.

I replied to the email, since the address looked like it actually might go to something other than an auto-responder. Nope.

That meant it was back to chat. Told the person I was looking for credit. They asked for my account number. Gave it. He issued a refund.

What?

Yeah, refunded the whole amount. The solution, you see, was that I needed to again go buy the software.

What a giant waste of time. But at least now, since I’ll be using the renewal code I was sent, I’ll no longer get the daily email reminders from Zone Alarm that I need to renew my subscription.

Oh, and thanks but no thanks for the Extended Download Service that’s absolutely unnecessary, Zone Alarm, since the latest software is always offered for current customers.

Want to see what a mess AT&T has made by calling its HSPA+ network 4G? Look at my two “4G” AT&T phones below, one the iPhone 4S, the other the Galaxy S II Skyrocket:

The iPhone is reporting 3G speed, even though it’s getting what AT&T would have you believe is its first “layer” of 4G speed, through the HSPA+ network.

The Galaxy II is reporting 4G speed, even though it’s getting exactly the same HSPA+ connection that the iPhone 4S.

The Galaxy II is also reporting 4G speed even though it is NOT getting the much faster speed it would get if AT&T’s 4G LTE network was live in my area. My understanding is that if I did get this speed, it would say 4G LTE.

Crazy.

Apple apparently has prevented AT&T from forcing it to show a 4G indicator for HSPA+ connections — and good for Apple.

Meanwhile, AT&T’s decision to call HSPA+ “4G” means that on what I’d consider the first 4G phone I’ve actually owned from AT&T, that 4G indicator is meaningless unless it says 4G LTE.

For the record, I’ve also got a 4G LTE phone from Verizon, a Droid Charge. Whatever claims AT&T wants to make about HSPA+, my Droid Charge’s speed leaves the iPhone 4S in the dust.