The Honolulu Star Advertiser

[helen]

I wonder how many people upset with paying a few bucks for local news coverage pay their Oceanic Cable bills without thinking about it.

From what I have been reading here the issue is not paying for the service but rather the closer you are to Oahu, the more you pay for the online version of the service.

With the printed version it is the other way around, the farther you are from Oahu the more you pay for the product.

For example a daily single issue price of the Star Advertiser is 75 cents on Oahu but you pay $1 for the same issue on the other islands.

[Kalihiboy]

For people relying on getting their local tv news, changes could be in order if Congress gets their way:

http://www.nab.org/documents/newsRoo...se.asp?id=2579
http://www.thefutureoftv.org/

[Frankie's Market]

I can't be the only one for whom an electronic subscription (if delivered in a timely fashion and in a readable format) sent to my phone is a good fit.

In your situation, a digital-only subscription makes perfect sense.

9. Currently I have no iPad so I won't be subscribing anytime soon. The iPod Touch (and its more popular cousin the iPhone) is too small for me to read text for long sustained periods of time. Those devices are ideal for "at-a-glance" breaking news headlines and streaming audio or video content. A regular computer is better for all electronic content.

Well, if one had to choose between the iPad vs. the iPhone for reading the newspaper, watching streaming videos, or virtually any kind of web surfing, the bigger-screened iPad would naturally win out,... if everything else is equal. But the reality of the situation is that everything isn't equal between these two devices, as far as data plans go. Count me in as one of those people who is grandfathered into Verizon's $30/month unlimited plan for the iPhone. For the same amount of money, I would be limited to 3GB a month on the iPad. With all the music and video that I stream, I would blow through that limit in less than a week, easy!

Restricting my usage of mobile devices to times when I'm in a wi-fi hotspot is no good for me. When I need access to e-mail, news, or weather reports, I want it right away. I don't have time to go hunting for and then, hanging around in a hotspot when I'm traveling.

[mel]

1. Most of the time I am near a hotspot that allows me to use my iPod Touch's wifi.

2. Wifi = free | 3G/4G = pay, and yes, bandwidth caps suck.

3. I have signed up with opposing the FCC's take away of channels from OTA broadcasters. http://www.thefutureoftv.org/

[scrivener]

I'm still working on that subscription issue. Today I was able to activate my online subscription (it takes 48 hours after you make the payment) and mess around with the online reader.

It's a pretty good-looking interface if slightly awkward to navigate. The front page offers icons for RSS feeds, "interactive radio" (which I haven't played with yet), "read offline" (which requires the installation of a PressReader app, apparently), and "export to e-reader."

I've got an e-reader but haven't tried that one yet. I'm mostly interested in (a) accessing the issue on my phone and (b) the ability to print the NYT crossword.

I downloaded the PressReader app (free) to my iPhone but I'm in the middle of something on my phone right now so I haven't had a chance to look at it. I'm skeptical about crossword puzzle printing because it looks like you have to print the whole page.

It's 4:36 Sunday morning and the Sunday issue isn't available yet. I know that if I walked down to the Walgreens on the corner I could pick up the print edition right now. And if I were subscribing to the print issue, I _might_ have it in my driveway by now.

So...incomplete status update after one day.

[LikaNui]

I just went to the website and got a blank page except for the logo and it wanted me to sign in. (As a full subscriber to the print edition I'd signed up a week ago and have free full access.) So I signed in, it accepted my sign in, and took me to... another blank page with just the logo.

[Amati]

I hope we don't lose free access to stories like these from the SA today:

• Two dogs unharmed in Waikiki apartment fire
• Calif. taxidermist preserves Gaga's meat dress
• HPD reaches out with Facebook page

Stories like these are why Hawaii folk are happy to pay a premium rate over mainland subscribers, and to choose to pay for a subscription to the SA over other choices.

[Walkoff Balk]

http://www.staradvertiser.com/

I hold in my hands, the last envelope.

[Kimo]

Non-subscriber to this point, but I checked in this morning (first day of 'walled' content) to see what is and is not available to us freeloaders. Happy to discover that Dave Reardon and Erika Engle are NOT considered 'Premum Content.' That may be enough for me to continue non-subscriber status. We'll see what I can't live without . . .

[Video Guy]

Just noticed that the www.staradvertiser.com/mobile url now forwards you to their main site. The mobile link was good because there were no ads, but I guess that's why it's no longer there, no ads. I avoided the StarAdvertiser mobile app because of all the inline ads. I guess that's where I'm going though since the full site on a smartphone won't cut it.

I'll assume this is all related the new pricing structure.

[Video Guy]

Just to add...the mobile app also only shows "Breaking" news. But the full list of stories is only available on the main site. Btw, there's no link to the main site from the mobile app...at least I don't see one.

[scrivener]

I guess that's where I'm going though since the full site on a smartphone won't cut it.

Just to add...the mobile app also only shows "Breaking" news. But the full list of stories is only available on the main site. Btw, there's no link to the main site from the mobile app...at least I don't see one.

Are you talking about with or without a paid subscription? With a paid subscription, you can read the entire issue in a third-party app called PressReader. I'm working on a review of the new service now, and reading the paper on a smartphone, especially with PressReader, is pretty dang good.

[Leo Lakio]

9 reasons newspapers are suddenly asking print subscribers to pay for full Web access - (article from the Poynter Institute)

[Video Guy]

Are you talking about with or without a paid subscription? With a paid subscription, you can read the entire issue in a third-party app called PressReader. I'm working on a review of the new service now, and reading the paper on a smartphone, especially with PressReader, is pretty dang good.

I don't have a subscription. I'll take a look at PressReader though. Just to clarify the www.staradvertiser.com/mobile link was just text links of the headlines to text versions of the stories. But I understand why it's different now. Just an observation.

[craigwatanabe]

Interesting. The Honolulu Advertiser is up and well...at least the classifieds and online something or other.

[GeckoGeek]

Interesting. The Honolulu Advertiser is up and well...at least the classifieds and online something or other.

I think it was kept up for the archives. If you went far enough back on the archives of the StarAdvertiser site, you were directed to the appropriate predecessor.

[Sharilyn]

My Mom subscribes to StarAdvertiser's paper, so I used her info to get free online access. It was so easy... they ask for your last name, phone number and zipcode... and her account info came up. in fact, it was too easy. I was thinking, anyone can steal an online subscription this way. The best target would be an elderly person (which my Mom is), who would likely not have internet access.

Another thing, what's to prevent someone from giving their passcode to all their friends and coworkers? And this could get passed on even further.

[LikaNui]

The S-A has daily polls on their website; they used to be only Monday through Friday but now are seven days per week. Good.
They publish the results in the print version the following day. Also good.
Usually they also publish how many votes there were, but maybe 1/3 of the time they don't publish the count. Hmmmm.
That's all just a lead-in to the fact that I sometimes wonder at the choices of possible answers, as it seems they sometimes leave out obvious possibilities. Intentional or not? Dunno.
But get this: Today's poll says:

How do you plan to catch Saturday’s University of Hawaii football season opener against Colorado?

A. Go to the game
B. Pay TV
C. Radio
D. Don't care

They didn't mention the obvious possible answer, which is that almost all of us will watch it live and for FREE on ESPN2.
Why would they leave that out of the poll?

[scrivener]

Another thing, what's to prevent someone from giving their passcode to all their friends and coworkers? And this could get passed on even further.

Perhaps the state isn't full of people trying to get something for nothing.

They didn't mention the obvious possible answer, which is that almost all of us will watch it live and for FREE on ESPN2.
Why would they leave that out of the poll?

I'm guessing it's not the sportswriters who wrote the question. Someone knows what the general options are but didn't know this game is going to be on national television. Heck, I'm kind of a fan but I didn't know until I read this post that the game was on ESPN2.

[LikaNui]

I'm guessing it's not the sportswriters who wrote the question. Someone knows what the general options are but didn't know this game is going to be on national television. Heck, I'm kind of a fan but I didn't know until I read this post that the game was on ESPN2.

I didn't either... until I read it in today's Star-Advertiser. The same place that has the poll.

[Frankie's Market]

How do you plan to catch Saturday’s University of Hawaii football season opener against Colorado?

A. Go to the game
B. Pay TV
C. Radio
D. Don't care

They didn't mention the obvious possible answer, which is that almost all of us will watch it live and for FREE on ESPN2.
Why would they leave that out of the poll?

In a way, ESPN2 is "pay TV." Basic cable isn't free.

But I know what you mean. Whoever wrote the poll probably assumed that the opening game was going to be on Oceanic's UH PPV package. Pure carelessness on the part of whoever formulated the poll's list of responses.

There are other responses they should have added, like watching the game at a sports bar, or at a friend's house.

[scrivener]

There are other responses they should have added, like watching the game at a sports bar, or at a friend's house.

Yeah, but if you're the sort who answers online newspaper polls, where in the world are you making any friends before Saturday morning?

[Leo Lakio]

Yee-ouch.
extra characters

[LikaNui]

Yeah, but if you're the sort who answers online newspaper polls, where in the world are you making any friends before Saturday morning?

Gee, voting on a single question takes less than 5 seconds. Doesn't take much time away from making friends.
On the other hand, someone [/cough] wrote in another thread: "(Kurt) Cobain obviously passes the icon test, and when he killed himself I went to bed for three days and never left the apartment".

[Leo Lakio]

We now see the generation gap between LikaNui & Scrivener in clear light.