Free Times

Hurrah! The Irish Times website is, at last, now free and available to one and all.. The site has been available to subscribers only for a long time but, as of today, they're opening up their big hall door and welcoming us inside for a look around.

It's very nice too. Around the office it's been getting the kind of comments that newspaper sites always get - Very clean, easy to navigate etc.. Which is the least you'd expect I suppose.

I wonder how they're going to pay for it though. It was only last year that they had their big colourful relaunch and now they're updating their site and giving it to the world. Will advertising cover it all? Given the bad news we learnt last week (well we knew about it for ages but it's official now, isn't it?) about the economy and what we read about the difficulties facing the newspaper industry worldwide, I imagine all of this could have come at a better time for the Times?

Still - that's their problem, isn't it? We're in a recession and I don't have to pay for my crossword anymore. That's a tenner I've saved this week without even getting up off my chair. This economic downturn is going to b a doddle!