Poor Mojo's Newswire

It must have sounded like a great idea to someone at News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) at the time: “Hey, I know how we can sell more subscriptions through the New York Post iPad App! Let’s block access through iPad Safari and make them go to the app instead.” What they should have heard: “Hey, let’s make our editorial content as inaccessible and irrelevant as possible and send iPad users to other options. Oh, and at the same time, let’s take three giant steps back.” Even better, apparently no one there noticed or cared that users of other iPad browsers like Skyfire and Opera Mini can slip right in. It is one of the most poorly conceived paywall efforts I’ve come across—and I’ve seen more than a few. It was annoying but understandable marketing when the Post pitched the iPad app via an interstitial that popped up whenever you followed a link. (The first few times I wound up skipping the article because it wasn’t clear that I could get to it after seeing the promo.) The Post has been clear from the beginning about wanting to make money from app. What makes this different from News Corp sibling The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times or other news outlets limiting access to digital content in the hopes of gaining subscription revenue? The NYP literally is blocking the web for a subset of users (usually that’s left to totalitarian regimes), targeting the way someone accesses the web to keep readers out. You can’t even see the front page or the day’s front/back cover images. For iPad users relying on Safari, it is as though the site exists only as a billboard for an app.

CORDOVA, Ala. – James Ruston's house was knocked off its foundation by tornadoes that barreled through town last month and is still uninhabitable. He thought help had finally arrived when a truck pulled up to his property with a mobile home from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Then he got the call: Single-wide mobile homes, like the FEMA one, are illegal in the city of Cordova. The city's refusal to let homeless residents occupy temporary housing provided by FEMA has sparked outrage in this central Alabama town of 2,000, with angry citizens filling a meeting last week and circulating petitions to remove the man many blame for the decision, Mayor Jack Scott. Ruston and many others view the city's decision as heartless, a sign that leaders don't care that some people are barely surviving in the rubble of a blue-collar town. "People have to live somewhere. What's it matter if it's in a trailer?" asked Felicia Boston, standing on the debris-strewn lot where a friend has lived in a tent since a tornado destroyed his home on April 27. Scott has heard all the complaints, and he isn't apologizing. He said he doesn't want run-down mobile homes parked all over town years from now. "I don't feel guilty," he said. "I can look anyone in the eye." . . . "There are trailers all over here but (Scott) wants to clean all the trash out. He doesn't like lower-class people," said Harvey Hastings.