There are so many ways to get around the New York Times paywall (or, as someone called it when it debuted, its pay fence) but if you subscribe to the NYT on your Amazon Kindle, you are now “entitled to complete online coverage of breaking news, articles, videos, audio clips, multimedia and blogs on NYTimes.com” free of charge.
Amazon had promised this would be coming, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. → Read More
The New York Times Company this morning reported Q1 2011 earnings per share of $.04, compared with $.08 in the same period of 2010.
Total revenues decreased 3.6 percent to $566.5 million from $587.9 million. The publisher’s operating profit came in at $31.1 million for the quarter, compared with $52.7 million in the same period of 2010.
Approximately three weeks after the global launch of its digital subscription packages, NYT reports paid digital subscribers have surpassed 100,000, although it cautions that it does not yet have visibility into conversion and retention rates for these paying customers after the initial promotional period. → Read More
In a move sure to irk at least two or three people who work for The New York Times, The Huffington Post (owned by AOL, our own masters in some degree of command) has put up a paywall that applies only to NYT employees.
In a message to affected potential readers of HuffPost content, founder Arianna Huffington explains that NYT employees can henceforth access only one article for free per month. → Read More
As one of the world’s leading media publishers, it’s critical for The New York Times Company to stay ahead of the curve in the digital space, or die trying. Hence, its efforts on the desktop with Times Reader 2.0, as well as its mobile website and multi-platform applications.
But the company has now come up with an additional way of deriving (sorely needed) revenues from its mobile apps apart from selling or slapping ads on them: licensing. → Read More
In the first quarter of the year, The New York Times Company announced upbeat earnings results, reporting a profit and growing digital advertising sales, albeit after significantly scaling down costs last year.
Earlier this morning, the media company released earnings for the second quarter, and things aren’t looking terrible for them – but not stellar either.
The company’s Q2 profit declined 18 percent to $32 million, compared to the same period a year earlier, when it recorded a $37.7 million tax benefit and net income of $39 million. On an operating basis, profit more than doubled, increasing from $23.5 million to $60.8 million. → Read More
Too funny. According to The Awl, The New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett yesterday reportedly sent out a memo (below) to NYT writers asking them to severely cut down on the use of the word ‘tweet’ outside of “orrnithological contexts”. It appears to be a myth, but a funny one at least.
Corbett has been overseeing language issues for the paper’s newsroom since September 2009, and was previously in charge of revisions in the newsroom’s style manual as deputy news editor.
Update: Dave Itzkoff, who blogs for the Times, tweets that the report is indeed not true. Which makes it a perfect satirical piece worth sharing anyway. Update 2: Another New York Times staffer tells us privately that the memo is “100% real” and Itzkoff clarifies that it is not the memo’s existence he was denying, but that some journalists inside the NYT recognize “tweet” as a word and there is an internal debate ongoing about it. → Read More
After significantly scaling down costs, The New York Times Company this morning announced upbeat Q1 2010 results, reporting a profit and growing digital advertising sales.
NYT’s operating profit grew more than fivefold in the first quarter of 2010, to $83.3 million compared with $16.4 million in the first quarter of 2009. Total revenues were down 3.2% in Q1, to $587.9 million from $607.1 million in the same period last year.
That’s not bad news, considering that the media company reported a decline of 11.5 percent in last quarter before that (Q4 2009). → Read More
We had some fun yesterday for April Fools day, fake-covering the launch of the New York Times iPad app by replacing some words of an article in the paper published back in 1996 upon the launch of its first Website.
Now, the company has introduced its iPad app for real. It’s free and both advertiser-sponsored and advertising-supported, but there’s also a “full, paid app” in the works. → Read More
The New York Times Company announced this morning that it will be introducing a paid, metered model for NYTimes.com at the beginning of 2011.
The publisher will offer users free access to an unspecified set number of articles per month and then charge users once they exceed that number.
The New York Times says this will enable NYTimes.com to create a second revenue stream while still preserving its advertising business, for which digital now makes up about a quarter of its total advertising revenues. In addition, the company says, it will also provide the “necessary flexibility to keep an appropriate ratio between free and paid content and stay connected to a search-driven Web”. → Read More
The New York Times Company is considering the launch of a brand new online news reader that would let people experience the consumption of NYTimes.com content in an entirely new and fairly innovative way. The publisher has reached out to members of its Insight Lab to get some rudimentary feedback on the new reader prototype and to help settle the naming issue.
Insight Labs members can test out the new prototype on a live website, which means you can, too. All you need to do is head over to this web page and you’ll be able to play around with the ‘newview’ as well. → Read More
Silicon Alley Insider has found that printing the New York Times costs twice as much as if the company gave every subscriber an Amazon Kindle using some rough numbers and elementary math. Obviously, not everyone likes the Kindle and cutting out the distribution of the NYT would eliminate thousands of jobs, but it clearly shows how digital is killing the print star. The transition to a digital print medium will not be complete until the next generation though as many baby boomers – and their parents – have trouble with GPSs and cell phones. So no matter how much it costs to keep killing trees, the practice will continue for their sake alone. → Read More
The advertising situation at the New York Times is not getting any better. Today, the company released its fourth quarter earnings. Total advertising revenues were down 13.1 percent in the quarter to $1.8 billion. Of that, its total Internet advertising revenues (from NYTimes.com, Boston.com, and About.com primarily) was only $$81.9 million, down 3.5 percent.
Internet advertising only accounts for 12 percent of the company’s annual revenues (for the year, it made $309 million from Internet advertising, up 9.3 percent). But as one of the largest media sites on the Web it is an important bellwether.
When the New York Times reported last November was the first time Internet advertising revenues declined (by 3.8 percent), I called it the canary in the coalmine. In December, things took a turn for the worse, with Internet advertising revenues dropping an even steeper 12.7 percent. → Read More
In what may be an early indicator of broader Web advertising trends, the New York Times announced today that it saw total Internet advertising revenues decline 3.8 percent in November. This compares to a total decrease of 21.2 percent for all advertising at media company, most of which is print advertising. The New York Times releases financial data on a monthly basis, and this was the first time it has reported an actual decrease in Internet advertising revenues. (Internet advertising revenues for the year through November are still up 11.6 percent).
The NYT’s digital properties, which include NYTimes.com, Boston.com, and About.com, attracted 47 million unique visitors in November and collectively would have been the 16th largest site on the Web, according to comScore. In the third quarter, online advertising ground to a halt at the largest Web companies. → Read More
If you’re one of those people who insists on living in the “suburbs” or “not in the heart of major metropolitan areas” like my “parents”, then you might get shitty cellphone reception. It happens to many, it could happen to you. Our own Papa Biggs has a pretty good story in today’s New York Times about ways you can improve your reception at home or other places where it’s lacking. I’m a fan of femtocells, like T-Mobile’s @Home initiative. There are others, too, so pop over for a read. → Read More
Not only did the NYT screw up Reggie’s name two times, it screwed up the whole Wii and DS game transferring as well. An article about the Nintendo DS video game system in the Dec. 31 Business Day section of the New York Times incorrectly referred to future capabilities of the device. The statement that complete Nintendo DS games will eventually be able to be downloaded into the device via a wireless connection with the company’s Wii game console is incorrect. Users can download games to play on Wii, and, in the future, the Nintendo DS will be able to receive demo versions of some DS games from Wii, but not the entire game. The demo will be erased once the Nintendo DS is turned off. With Wii and DS, Nintendo Has 2 Hit Game Devices [NYT] → Read More
Last night, the New York Times quietly launched Blogrunner on the technology section of its main site. Blogrunner was one of many techmeme copycat sites, until the New York Times bought it last year. Like Techmeme, Blogrunner is a service that keeps track of the latest news and blog posts on a range of topics (Politics, Technology, Media, Business, Economy, Law, Health, Movies, Books, Religion, Iraq, Entertainment). Now those links are appearing on the New York Time’s main site, starting with the technology section, in a middle column titled “Technology Headlines from Around the Web.” It is also on the bottom-right of the Health section in a column called “Health Around the Web.” And links from Blogrunner will appear at the bottom of individual stories, giving readers a choice between related articles from the New York Times and related articles from around the Web (much like some sites use Sphere). Says New York Times editor (and Bits blogger) Saul Hansell: ” Unlike Google News and Techmeme, we aren’t trying to prove machines can be better editors than people. We have a hybrid model, with Web Crawlers and Editors both helping find and ranks posts.” But the NYT would like nothing better than to displace those two news crawlers. At first glance, it looks like it is Techmeme for a mainstream audience. TechCrunch happens to be at the top of both the NYT Blogrunner and Techmeme right now. It will be interesting to see which one delivers more traffic. We will report on the results tomorrow. (Update: Blogrunner is not killing anyone yet. Of all referring sites to TechCrunch yesterday and today up until 11 AM EST, Blogrunner is ranked a lowly 105—although we are no longer listed on the NYT Technology page. In contrast, Techmeme is our 30th largest referrer.) CrunchBase Information TechMeme Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Have iPhone, be careful. According to a new New York Times article, a computer security firm has discovered a flaw in the iPhone that allows someone to take complete control of the phone via a website. Independent Security Evaluators has successfully breached the iPhone using malicious code on a webpage to take control of the data and phone features on device. The scary part is that the exploit requires no interaction from the user other than surfing to the infected page. Once there, no pop-ups, confirm screens, etc. are necessary for the code to be run. ISE has submitted a detailed report to Apple so that it can fix the flaw immediately. Truth be told, by the end of this week, I bet you’ll find an iTunes update for the iPhone that patches the exploit. It should be too, considering that users can access and send any file from the phone according to the firm. Pictures of your girl leaked all over the ‘net? Not cool. IPhone Flaw Lets Hackers Take Over, Security Firm Says [NYT] → Read More
Would you buy DNS from this man? Well, you don’t have to. We love us some OpenDNS. It’s useful — the new “short-cut” feature and pR0n blocking are great to keep us undistracted and working — its CEO, David Ulevitch, was a really cool guy. Plus the kid is only 25. Well, John “The Animal” Markoff wrote all about him and his company. It’s a fairly in-depth look at a fairly boring topic that adds enough flair and personality to make it a good read. The service also offers on-the-fly URL repair using search results based on broken URLs type in by users. When VeriSign tried to do this, the world was outraged. When a nice anthro major does it, he gets good press. Fixing Typos by Web Users, Without Raising Hackles [NYTimes] → Read More
Remember how a few years ago you strutted into a Radio Shack and the 42-year-old dude who lives with his mom explained how by early 2009, every TV signal will be digital and analog will be history? Well I certainly do and now that we’re starting to approach that deadline, the government is starting to bug out a little. If you’re still rocking that old 1991 Sylvania 13-inch you got for $50 without a digital cable box, then you’re either going to have to make an upgrade to digital cable and a better TV or buy a converter box. Lucky for you though, the government will give up to $80 per household towards converter boxes, which cost roughly $50 each. Anyone can apply for the bonus, but there’s only $1 billion in free funding, so it’s first-come, first-serve. You have until March 31st, 2008 to apply for the help. Good luck. U.S. Sets Rules for Digital TV Payments [NYT] → Read More
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