Davis ThinkingNewspapers Beyond the Infographic
Friday, February 27, 2009
What should newspapers do? What newspaper can’t do.
Tag: New York Times
At Issue } essential reading
No More Shell Game: Oil Brand Ends Gas Sales To Iran
Mar 12, 2010
Consumers boycott brands for almost as many reasons as there are brands. If you were looking for a brand to boycott because it made deals with both the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran (and in possible violation of the Iran Sanctions Act), the New York Times provided a handy list last weekend.
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Pricing Strategies Gone Wrong
Jan 25, 2010
Companies need to make money – I get it. And as a capitalist at heart, I generally subscribe to the business practice of charging what the market will bear. But as I’ve learned about the recent pricing decisions of two high-profile institutions of American culture – Starbucks and The New York Times – I’ve wondered if pricing models based on traditional understandings of profit margins and price elasticity can backfire. That is, charging higher prices for certain offerings may make sense on paper – but they actually incentivize the wrong behaviors and reward the wrong customers.
NYT To Charge For Online Access
Jan 20, 2010
The New York Times will begin charging for online access to its website by 2011, reversing the prevailing policy among general news brands to give away their best work for free. The publisher of the International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe and the namesake daily newspaper will adopt a metered model, similar to a system used by the Financial Times, that will offer a set number of articles for free monthly and begin charging readers after they exceed the limit.
The Cockeyed Economics of Metering Reading
Jan 18, 2010
The irony of the report that The New York Times is going to start metering readers and charging those who come back more often is this: They would would end up charging — and, they should fear, sending away — the readers who are worth the most while serving free those who are worth least.
Ad Influx Brightens Hopes For Newspapers, Magazines
Jan 4, 2010
A year-end flurry of ad spending helped moderate steep declines at some newspapers and magazines, and has fueled an uptick at others, raising hopes for a recovery in 2010. Still, following a brutal 2009, when scores of publications closed or made drastic cutbacks, publishers remain wary of declaring an ad rebound as marketers selectively reopen their wallets. Publishing executives attribute the recent influx of ad money in part to marketers hurrying to spend the remainder of their annual ad budgets after doling out those funds sparingly earlier in the year amid fears of an economic collapse.
Real Time, Real Discussion, Real Reporting: Choose Two
Nov 30, 2009
As you likely know, Tiger Woods was in an accident under apparently mysterious circumstances early Friday morning. Predictably, the reports and reactions thereto pertaining varied somewhat in quality and timeliness, and predictably, this has led to paroxysms of futurist glee in some and sullen condemnation by others. Now that the smoke has cleared, we can examine the event, which is certainly worth a little inspection despite its obvious triviality, with a little perspective. I’m not going to speculate on Woods’ injuries, the cause of the crash, or rumors of fights and affairs. I don’t care, personally. But how the information proliferated makes for interesting dissection. And the fun part is that there’s something for everybody’s agenda! Many will choose to ignore or emphasize unduly one party’s role in this drama, but the fact is that it very neatly exposes both the strengths and weaknesses of both traditional and so-called new media. I hope you’re sitting comfortably.
See Me, Feel Me
Nov 25, 2009
"Web sites such as CNN.com and ESPN.com are discovering that readers ... are a lot more likely to want to interact with their content when video clips are a significant part of the overall package ... The trend suggests a new wrinkle in the way people want to experience online news and information." The New York Times (Nov. 11, 2009) New wrinkle, come on! Brands need to open their eyes to the reality of the communications process. Astute visual marketing strategists like Toniq's Cheryl Swanson have long advocated what neuroscientists have proven -- 70% of human stimuli arrives via our eyes, a meager 15% enters the ears. So if you want to successfully communicate your brand story ... go to the video.
National Newspapers' New Focus: Local Markets
Nov 4, 2009
National news outlets' battle to provide local news and win local advertisers is suddenly heating up fast. The Wall Street Journal's new weekly San Francisco Bay Area edition will appear for the first time tomorrow, confronting a similar Fridays-and-Sundays push from The New York Times that began there on Oct. 16. The Journal is simultaneously planning to hire new reporters for metro coverage of the New York area, according to insiders who confirmed a New York Times report breaking that news yesterday. And The Times plans to introduce a Chicago edition in the next few weeks, fed by a deal with the new Chicago News Cooperative.
Online Rally May Sidestep Newspapers
Oct 26, 2009
It was a good day for newspaper Web sites when Mercedes-Benz USA introduced its updated E-Class cars this summer. Mercedes bought out the ad space on the home pages of The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and had those sites create special 3-D ads for them, at an estimated cost of $100,000 a site. The days after were not as good. While Mercedes was happy with the newspaper sites’ performance, it shifted money to cheaper, more tightly aimed ads bought through networks, which bundle ad space from many Web sites.
CalorieCount.com Targets Media Buyers
Oct 19, 2009
Food database and weight management site CalorieCount.com is looking to attract a new crop of advertisers with a campaign touting its “Strength in Numbers.” The effort, which began this week, is the first major ad campaign for the New York Times-owned brand. CalorieCount.com was founded by two aerospace engineers in 2003. About.com, which is a division of the New York Times, purchased it in 2006.
NYT Explores Twitter Search Products
Sep 22, 2009
The New York Times Co. has big plans for Twitter. The venerable news organization is exploring plans to build search products that can sift through thousands of Twitter feeds and pull together commentary on specific topics. According to Martin Nisenholtz, svp of digital operations at NYT Co., the company has built such a product for its popular fashion-themed blog The Moment, which aggregates Twitter commentary from both editors and readers related to the high-end fashion world.
Can Anyone Tap the $100 Billion Potential of Hyperlocal News?
Aug 31, 2009
Outside the local train station, the Maplewood Civic Association maintains a bulletin board plastered with news of jazz festivals and yoga classes for this small, affluent New Jersey town. One day last winter, an unassuming new flyer appeared, nestled between ones hawking a fish tank and a drum set, titled, "Introducing the Local." The flyer describes the Local as "a community Web site by you and for these communities, mentored by The New York Times." Why is a media titan like The New York Times Co. -- already stretched thin by the challenges of a faltering business model -- dabbling in community news, traditionally the bottom of the journalistic food chain? Call it the Google Effect. The search giant's model, described by author John Battelle as "a billion dollars, one nickel at a time," is a perfect description of how media companies hope to take tiny sources of local revenue and roll them up into big money.
What If: The New New York Times
Jul 30, 2009
Like everyone else I’ve watched the print media world fall apart over the last few years. The poster child for that industry is the New York Times, of course, and their many missteps in recent memory have been well chronicled. In early 2008 Marc Andreessen started a New York Times Deathwatch, and the company’s financial performance has degraded since then. I keep wondering what would happen if the top 10% of the writers at the NYTimes just…walked out. I know it’s crazy, but let’s just explore this a bit for the heck of it.
Universally Accessible Web Content Cannot Survive
Jul 27, 2009
If you're at all lucky, you'll spend at least part of this summer far away from spreadsheets, reports, ad consoles, and bid management software. While there's nothing wrong with single-mindedly focusing on all the granular data associated with search, too much data, all the time, can rot your brain. With this latter point in mind, this week's column attempts to wrestle with some large-frame issues that I think deserve attention, because, as we learned from the financial crisis, it's often the most basic, most obvious issues (such as whether all subprime mortgages that were being issued could possibly ever be repaid) that can blow everyone out of the water. In other words, just because nobody's talking about something doesn't mean that it's not real enough to kill you.
Why The New York Times Doesn't Call Its Readers 'Readers
Jun 4, 2009
In a world of near-ubiquitous computing, where an ever-expanding collection of devices turns readers into an army of co-creators and news distributors, The New York Times is trying to figure out its place. And the venerable Gray Lady's place in this world, increasingly, rests squarely with turning its readers into, well, something more.
Is the Social Media Expert Going the Way of the Dodo?
May 29, 2009
Throughout the last 24 hours, word has spread quickly that the New York Times appointed Jennifer Preston as the news organization's first Social Media Editor.
Pay Walls Alone Won’t Save Newspapers
May 17, 2009
Will May 2009 mark the beginning of the end for the free, unfettered Internet? From all the wailing on the Web — and the fist-pumping in some old-media redoubts — it might seem so.
Tick, Tick, Tick
May 15, 2009
The Observer’s John Koblin reports that the NY Times is considering putting a meter on usage of its site and charging once you’ve read too much. Incredible. They’ve spent the last 15 years trying to get people to stay longer and read more on their site and now they’re going to penalize their best customers?
Dear Pizza Hut, I'm sorry. I got it wrong.
Apr 22, 2009
Yesterday I wrote a story about how Pizza Hut is looking for a summer Twintern. Based on some of the verbiage in the story, namely a reference to the recent Domino's Pizza YouTube fiasco, I stated that I felt it in poor taste, a PR stunt and did little more than demonstrate Pizza Hut's lack of SM creds. I still maintain the timing of the announcement could have been better managed on Pizza Hut's part, but other than that... well read on.
Techmeme Founder: WSJ, NYT are Aggregators
Apr 9, 2009
Techmeme is one of the sites that Robert Thomson, managing editor of the The Wall Street Journal, presumably thinks is a "parasite" or "tech tapeworm in the intestines of the Internet." The Web site aggregates links to stories. Along with the links is a short description of the news. Thomson and others in the newspaper industry say it's unfair and unlawful for Web sites to profit from their content without compensating them
Games Dominate Apple's App Store
Apr 8, 2009
Few traditional media companies have scored major success in the Apple App Store, the increasingly popular outlet where outside programmers and developers can launch programs or tools -- i.e., applications -- specially designed for iPhone users. In fact, games dominate, based on comScore’s ranking of the top 25 downloaded applications.
NYTimes: How Do You Feel About the Economy?
Apr 1, 2009
How Do You Feel About the Economy? is a simple textual interface with the aim to illustrate the current personal mood of New York Times readers in the context of the current state of the economy.
Times Techie Envisions the Future of News
Mar 11, 2009
Nick Bilton, an editor in the New York Times research and development lab, doesn't think much of newspaper. In fact, he doesn't even get the Sunday paper delivered to his house. Thankfully for Bilton and his employer, he's bullish on news. It's just the paper he hates.
Hyperlocal News From The New York Times
Mar 6, 2009
Billions of people may inhabit this planet, but when it comes right down to it, most of us are still primarily interested in what's going on in our own backyards. That's part of the premise behind The Printed Blog, which we covered back in January, and it's also the driving notion behind The Local, a new initiative from The New York Times.
The Fall Of The Focus Group?
Mar 3, 2009
Focus groups, the beloved method of many British and American marketers, are under attack in the US.
The New York Times' Latest Prototype: Skimming
Feb 17, 2009
Newspapers may be dying, but The New York Times has been admirably farsighted in trying to remake the medium. Their recent experiments have included remarkable online info graphics and the underappreciated but brilliant Times Reader. The latest experiment: A way to skim the paper online.
'NY Times' Launches Facebook Inauguration Promo
Jan 20, 2009
Following up a similar election-related effort, The New York Times is launching an inauguration-themed campaign on Facebook featuring ads aimed at driving traffic to its presence within the social networking site.
The New Journalism: Goosing the Gray Lady
Jan 13, 2009
This past year has been catastrophic for the New York Times. Advertising dropped off a cliff. The stock sank by 60 percent, and by fall, the paper had been rated a junk investment, announced plans to mortgage its new building, slashed dividends, and, as of last week, was printing ads on the front page. And yet, even as the financial pages write the paper’s obit, something hopeful has been going on: a kind of evolution.
Building an iTunes for Newspapers
Jan 13, 2009
My friend David Carr poses a worthy challenge in his New York Times column this morning: How can newspapers—now hemorrhaging advertisers and circulation—steal a little of that Apple magic and invent an iTunes for news that will help restore their economic standing?
End Times
Jan 7, 2009
Can The New York Times, America’s paper of record, survive the death of newsprint? Can journalism?
Traditional News Sites Dominate, But The Small Can Survive
Dec 16, 2008
More unwelcome news for The New York Times Co.: A new report suggests the embattled newspaper would have to increase page views sixfold on its Web site--roughly on par with msnbc.com and Yahoo News--in order to equal revenues on the print side.
NYTimes.com Intros Widgets in Beta
Dec 11, 2008
First, NYTimes.com launched an "alternative" home page, Times Extra. Then it introduced a new celebrity-driven ad campaign. Continuing a busy week, the site has launched Times Widgets in beta.
New York Times Online, Wall Street Journal Add New Elements
Dec 4, 2008
The Wall Street Journal's print edition and The New York Times Online will both introduce new elements Thursday morning as The Journal makes a play for new ad revenue and The Times tries to increase its allure to web surfers.
