Some research is clearly needed....

I had a nice Saturday.Went to the new Atlanta Aquarium (will be covered in another post plus pics to boot!)
Anyway unlike many Kenyans out here I try to keep in touch with what is going on back home.Yes I do know some Kenyans out here who are very ignorant and out of touch with what is going on in Kenya, they often talk about it like some foreign land.For me I embarked coming to the States like going to war.Any seasoned general will tell you that you never enter a battlefield without an exit strategy.You do not intend to be in the field of battle indefinitely incurring casualty after casualty.So I do have a 7 year plan and a back up to that plan because I do intend to go back home.My stay here is just a learning experience that's all.I have met many Kenyans whose stay here is what the swahili would say "haina mbele wala mwisho".The thing with the States is that if you do not have a plan for your life is that someone else wiill, the credit card companies will enslave you for the rest of your life after you fall for their "low interest" credit cards,dieticians will all tell you what you are meant to eat,fashion designers will tell you what you are meant to wear, Oprah will tell you what to read, Siskel and Roper will tell you what to watch and the list goes on.
Anyway I didn't plan on blasting people on the ability to think for themselves and the virtues of long term planning.
What I wanted to talk about was The Nation and East African Standard Online.Standard first started the trend by ceasing to publish all the articles from their daily magazines and instead offering access to a digital edition for $216 per year (36 issues free - I'm still trying to figure out if that is access to the magazine or the whole paper ), Nation has recently jumped on the bandwagon and is offering access to op-ed content for $175 per year but at least their free content is more extensive then that of the Standard.Now compare and contrast that with my New York Times select membership for only $30 that gives me the following benefits (apart from the daily news):
Daily columns from influential Op-Ed writers
Features and analysis from award-winning Sports, Business, New York/Region and International Herald Tribune columnists
Personalized e-mail news alerts
Virtual file drawer to save articles from NYTimes.com and around the Web
Early access to Sunday Times articles
Breaking news and award-winning multimedia
Today's Headlines e-mail and breaking news e-mails
Online classifieds,Access to The Times Archive back to 1981
Unless you know how to use Google to search a specific websites you will note that the search engines of both the Nation and the Standard are not of much use.I would like to know how much Nation and Standard are making from their digital editions.They are both taking advantage of the duopoly to screw the people.First of all, the labour in Kenya is cheap; so they didnt put that much money into it and the market for Kenyan news isn't that large so it would be wiser for them to make it more affordable for those of us who want to find out what is happening in Kenya.I did send Standard an e-mail but I am well aware that most of these big companies do not read e-mails that are sent to their info or help addresses.Anyway I just find it pathetic that a half baked product can be sold for so much money, if you're going to charge us that much then throw in all the bells and whistles like the NY times folk and that's easy because both are connected to Television stations so if you join up as a premier member you should also get to watch some clips from the daily news and some in the archives.
Anyway a man can hope, let me go enjoy my NY times select membership.
ps:If any KBW member needs an article from the NY times archive send me a link to the article and I will get you the full article!