211 replies to this topic

[Rail Paul]

New York magazine reports that the NYT will announce its decision to convert to a metered (pay) site within the next few days. One source believes the NYT will also announce a favorable pricing concession to users of the Apple tablet, which should be released on January 27.

The Times looked at several options, including status quo (free), an NPR/WNYC model where members would receive some special benefits, a Financial Times model (some casual reading is free, all others pay), or a Wall Street Journal model (a few articles free, most are inside the wall).

The decision to go paid is monumental for the Times, and culminates a yearlong debate that grew contentious, people close to the talks say. In favor of a paid model were Keller and managing editor Jill Abramson. Nisenholtz and former deputy managing editor Jon Landman, who was until recently in charge of nytimes.com, advocated for a free site.

The argument for remaining free was based on the belief that nytimes.com is growing into an English-language global newspaper of record, with a vast audience — 20 million unique readers — that, Nisenholtz and others believed, would prove lucrative as web advertising matured. (The nytimes.com homepage, for example, has sold out on numerous occasions in the past year.) As other papers failed to survive the massive migration to the web, the Times would be the last man standing and emerge with even more readers. Going paid would capture more circulation revenue, but risk losing significant traffic and with it ad dollars. At an investor conference this fall, Nisenholtz alluded to this tension: "At the end of the day, if we don't get this right, a lot of money falls out of the system."

But with the painful declines in advertising brought on by last year's financial crisis, the argument pushed by Keller and others — that online advertising might never grow big enough to sustain the paper's high-cost, ambitious journalism — gained more weight. The view was that the Times needed to make the leap to some form of paid content and it needed to do it now. The trick would be to build a source of real revenue through online subscriptions while still being able to sell significant online advertising. The appeal of the metered model is that it charges high-volume readers while allowing casual browsers to sample articles for free, thus preserving some of the Times' online reach.

Read more: New York Times Ready to Charge Online Readers -- Daily Intel http://nymag.com/dai...l#ixzz0ctMb0Xd5

Last man standing?

[bloviatrix]

I notice there's no mention of how they'll treat those who get home delivery. When the NYT tried the Times Select model the cost of delivery included access to everything in Times Select.

It's worthwhile mentioning even with delivery of the hard-copy WSJ, we're still blocked from some online content. It's very odd. And annoying. At least once or twice a week I come across an article online that I'm blocked from reading.

[Anthony Bonner]

I notice there's no mention of how they'll treat those who get home delivery. When the NYT tried the Times Select model the cost of delivery included access to everything in Times Select.

It's worthwhile mentioning even with delivery of the hard-copy WSJ, we're still blocked from some online content. It's very odd. And annoying. At least once or twice a week I come across an article online that I'm blocked from reading.

annoying but if you put the title of the article in google news you get served a link w/o a paywall

[Wilfrid]

Goodbye New York Times, as far as I'm concerned.

A comment I saw recently may or not be original, but struck me as very smart (and made me reflect on some my own web projects). On the internet, whatever can be disaggregated will be. In other words, the audience is less and less willing to consume packages put together by vendors. On the model of selecting individual musical tracks rather than albums, it's increasingly the case that consumers construct their own packages from a range of sources.

Over the last few months, I've moved strongly in that direction myself - and remember, I'm a middle-aged print fiend. Services like protopages.com now provide exceptional flexibility in constructing not just a home page, but as many customized pages as you want. Since I went that route, I've been cherry picking stories from sources like the Times more than I ever did - and, with the exception of Dining Out - I can do without the Times. I am not going to pay a fee for Dining Out.

There are undeniable negatives attached to this trend. First, the difficulty for vendors in bringing the bacon home. Second, that pre-setting one's interests with such precision is the enemy of serendipity. (I mean, you won't stumble across interesting stuff unexpectedly.) But this is the way we now "roll."

[Sneakeater]

How are you going to criticize the Times restaurant critic if you don't read him?

[Rich]

Goodbye New York Times...

That line became reality about 10 years ago.

[Wilfrid]

How are you going to criticize the Times restaurant critic if you don't read him?

I think the real question is whether I am prepared to pay to criticize the Times restaurant critic. As it happens, there are at least two places I can read the print copy free - and I wonder how much Times content will be accessible online, paywall or no paywall.

[Sneakeater]

The Times is such a habit for me that I know I couldn't do without it.

What's interesting (to me if no one else) is that I'd clearly give up my hard copy and subscribe to the online version. Five years ago, that decision wouldn't have been nearly as clear.

[nuxvomica]

The Times is such a habit for me that I know I couldn't do without it.

it takes 3 weeks to develop a new habit

[Sneakeater]

I think it may be an ethnic thing.

Did you ever see Bye Bye Braverman?

The Sunday Times is (rightly) treated as a sort of Reform Jewish fetish object.

[mongo_jones]

we currently subscribe to the new york times and read it online. i guess this will make us read the print edition, which we currently use largely as a source of dog-poop bags.

[Wilfrid]

I never imagined the day would come when I didn't read print newspapers at all. The steep decline of the NY Observer means that day is at hand.

[Rail Paul]

I never imagined the day would come when I didn't read print newspapers at all. The steep decline of the NY Observer means that day is at hand.

It's a really different way of consuming information. Five years ago, I read the NYT, the Star Ledger, the WSJ, and the Financial Times every day. Today, I read the WSJ and the Times online, and occasionally peruse the others online. My paper recycling has gone from two bags weekly to a bag once a month (largely with Barron's).

[Lippy]

We have home delivery of the paper and both of us use the website as the home page on our respective computers. Ranitidine generally takes the hard copy with him to work to read on the subway and I tend to read on-line, except for Sunday. I cannot imagine Sunday without the Times (see above.) I will need to subscribe to the on-line version because I use it for work-related searches. I suppose for that reason it will be tax deductible for me.

[bloviatrix]

I never imagined the day would come when I didn't read print newspapers at all. The steep decline of the NY Observer means that day is at hand.

It's a really different way of consuming information. Five years ago, I read the NYT, the Star Ledger, the WSJ, and the Financial Times every day. Today, I read the WSJ and the Times online, and occasionally peruse the others online. My paper recycling has gone from two bags weekly to a bag once a month (largely with Barron's).

We suspended delivery of the NYT when we went to LA last week - it still hasn't resumed so now we're only getting the WSJ delivers. I'm amazed at how many fewer newspapers we have laying around the apartment. It's wild - there's nothing to toss. Normally there are sections everywhere. I kind of like it (although this past weekend was very, very tough. I really miss the book review).