The issue isn't linking. It never was. The issue is copying.

http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf/2009/06/tighter_copyright_law_could_sa.html

In fact, PaidContent's central thesis could, in theory, be the cornerstone of a copyright infringement argument…essentially the analysis demonstrates that a form of theft is occurring.

Unfortunately, that kind of theft just happens to be what the entire concept of the internet is based on. So there's no way to legal your way out of it when the law is so clearly not equipped to deal with the reality. But it's a lot cheaper to throw lawyers at the problem than to actually try and find a solution.

Of course, IANAL, so for all I know this issue has already been settled in court…but I doubt it. IP law is such a mess I don't think anything is truly "settled" in that arena.

From the presentation side, news sites generally all fit the "homepage with headlines and teases that link to article pages" layout. (once sites get to a certain size, along with the homepage there are several "section fronts" of related content, but homepage or section front both lead to article pages.) This sets the reader up to make snap yes/no decisions of what to read based on a headline and maybe a lede, but can get an overvview just on one pageview. The newspaper layout of sections, stories and jumps gives the reader fewer choices one each page and more of the story to get involved with for each one (and more of a chance to see ads while skimming)

From they reader behavior point of view, the way a reader has to click to choose a story, and the way a click has such a jarring affect in the browser (a new page view) it makes choosing to read a story a much more active action than choosing to read a story in a newspaper. Also, the news site being read is just one of a million places the reader can be, and can be discarded much more easily for the next site to visit. (skim, click, read, back, click, and then on to the next site.) On the other hand, clicking to select content leads to environment that encourages the reader to move next, next, next. A newspaper once unfolded is the destination for the reader. You can read it fast or read it slow, but you're committed to this destination. (Is this the point the GlobeReader? To make it more of a destination?)

I guess my question is: Aggregators or not, does the web medium encourage reading in a way conducive to advertising?

1. No ads on the Google News home page. So even if Google is diverting eyeballs from the originating sites, it's not profiting from those eyeballs. We should all keep that in mind the next time we hear a dinosaur bellowing about all the money Google is making from stealing content.

2. Google News does run ads on search-result pages. But as Howard Owens has pointed out (don't have the link handy, but want to give him credit), when you get down to that level you are definitely benefiting the content creators. The reason: you're dealing with someone who is actively looking for something, and who will click through.

The article proves that aggregators aren't enticing a large percentage of people to continue to the content creator, but that isn't enough to debunk the idea that the Link Economy is benefiting news organizations overall.

Anecdotally, I have many 20-25 year old friends who have never purchased a copy of the Globe, and they only wind up on Boston.com when they’re directed to it by aggregation sites that they trust.

Aggregation is obviously turning some percentage of readers into sedate headline browsers who don’t chose to click through, but perhaps the net loss would be even greater for content creators without aggregators to engage new audiences and highlight good work.

Pay per click for news stories is an inevitable disaster. The only people who talk seriously about it are news junkies or people who make their living in media. It's not going to fly in the real world, except among people who are well-informed as it is.

Am I going to pay to click on something just to skim it, or to see what it's about? Doubtful.

Better to force-feed the ads.

Hulu and other video sites do it, newspaper sites tend to let the viewer click out of it fairly easily, for fear of losing the view. Does the technology exist to determine whether a click on a story comes from someone on your site or from afar? Can it force-feed an advertisement to new arrivals, or arrivals through aggregators, that the viewer must endure for a long enough period to get a message across, rather than click it away as soon as it arrives? Making someone sit for a spot on every story they look at after landing at a site would be death, but ads you can't click away from for new arrivals and maybe on certain specified movement while on site just might make the advertising worthwhile.

For all the talk of the outdated business model of newspapers, the Web model often ssumes that advertising is something people accept voluntarily. They don't. They need to be captured.