The Punch: A Flawrishing Website

By any standards The Punch Newspapers is a favourite of most Nigerians because it offers deep insight and objectivity in its publications hence I have been addicted to the Website to get the juiciest news. So it came to me as a shocker when a few months ago they decided that access to the hitherto free full News reports on the Website would be possible only on subscription.

Naturally I tuned off and went searching for some other free Online Newspapers to fuel my addiction to News. What I found lacked the rich content I had become accustomed to, so I swung back occasionally hoping that the Punch Business Managers would come back to reality(people ain’t gonna pay) and keep the market they are losing. Did they disappoint? I guess they didn’t, albeit in a queer way.

I had made an interesting discovery that at seemingly random clicks on links to News stories I would be able to read the full stories without paying a dime because the Login Page doesn’t come up. Instead the name and account expiration date of some registered user appears on the Web Page and I get to savour all the news story. If you clicked again you might get to see the Login Page and if you clicked again it went away.

I wondered if this was a twisted gimmick by the Newspaper but apparently it looks like a big security flaw in the Web Application which goes to promote lack of consumer confidence in E-Commerce Solutions in Nigeria. I mean why I should pay, when some other dude gets to read it for free and my identity cannot be protected. A Newspaper as big as Punch should know better than give their job to quacks to handle.

Appropriate and secure handling of user sessions is fundamental in Web Application Design; let’s always adopt the best practices,

Culled from www.techtrendsng.com

ditto

flaw or no flaw, I am easily turned off by stuff like that and will not return to that site till next year.  If by that time, it is still pay-to-read, I will not go back for another year, etc.  I too noticed the new "strategy" I would say at least 3 months ago and haven't visited since.

Such a pity, punch used to be the most visited Nigerian website in the world, with NL coming in 2nd.  Now, NL reigns supreme.

Whoever is in charge of their website division should realize that the way of the web is to offer basic needs for free then charge for extras.  Oh well, knowing how some people in Nigeria are, they will probably bark back, "do u know who i am?  I have been designing websites since 1973.  Since you are yelling like this, can I see your works?"

God help us all!

Ooops!  In my euphoric state, I failed to notice that what you see now is a preview of the content with links to subscribe for the full story.

Oh well, at least some sense has been knocked into their heads.  I guess we have to wait another 6 months for them to realize that not all news items should require a subscription

Kudos to them anyways for publishing at least part of their articles.