The New York Times is optimizing inbound traffic to its site in various ways these days. It has ceased allowing readers to forward the full text of an article to someone else, now only sending along a link. Recipients are of course bound to come pay a visit to the site. NYTimes.com also allows webloggers and others to link to articles via RSS feeds, which Readers can click on NYTimes.com's RSS links and go directly to the article page without registering.
Christine Mohan, associate director of product management for NYTimes.com, confirms the growing importance of RSS feeds in building site traffic: "NYTimes.com's RSS feeds generated 4.5 million page-views on the site in January. RSS is an efficient traffic driver that complements other distribution deals we have with top portals, ISPs, and aggregators like Moreover Technologies. RSS users also represent a news-hungry, influential audience for NYTimes.com." It's an interesting way of combining an open and a closed system.
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