Imagine Dave Winer’s reaction if this press release read,
“We are pleased to offer Weblog creators the ability to post headlines from NYTimes.com with Pyra’s software,” said Martin Nisenholtz, CEO of New York Times Digital. “Weblogs are an increasingly popular form of self-publishing within a highly influential community, and are therefore an important distribution channel for our high-quality content.”
I’m sure you can come up with a rant about dinosaurs, clueless old media, lockin and lockout, the importance of standards, yada yada yada.
I should add that I have nothing at all against exclusive deals. If I could arrange for an exclusive arrangement where only I got to run New York Times headlines I would do it in a second. It is not an issue of a particular business deal but rather about hypocrisy about the way to do business in general.