The latest AFR website was designed specifically to prevent that kind of linking (as mentioned in a Crikey story) using an Adobe technology called Flex. One side effect of this is that it doesn’t show up on Google searches. At all. Adobe actually provides a special application to allow linking by Google into Flex sites — so one has to conclude this is deliberate by the AFR. It has chosen not to be accessible by search engines in an internet era when these dominate.

I could cite other examples, but it really isn’t worth it.

The primary problem that Fairfax and other newspaper publishers face is that they don’t understand the money that can be made from distribution. In print publishing the big deal is actually production, getting ink on paper. On the web, production is much easier. Distribution, however, getting the right content to the right people, is much more complex.