Let The Joyous News Be Spread! The Wicked Old Witch At Last Is Dead!

Yes, well, now. Sheesh.

Still, the NYT readers are obviously fans — "Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site" is #1 on the NYT Business MEL (and most blogged about), easily trouncing Dan Rather (#7 and #3 respectively, though the Alan Greenspan/Ayn Rand piece is gaining ground). Here's what we took exception with, though:

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

"What wasn't anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others," Ms. Schiller said.

Oh, no! That wasn't anticipated at all — was it, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarivs, Jason Kottke and Mickey Kaus? I repeat: Sheesh.

Meanwhile, now that the inmates are running the asylumn, no one is more gung-ho than the NYT, even embracing...bloggers on the subject. Aw. Love!