[thelist] On line Newspapers

H. G. Quinn hgquinn at attglobal.net
Wed Jul 26 11:01:38 CDT 2000


You might want to contact the New York Times to see if they'll share their
experience with you:

    http://www.nytimes.com

They originally offered free subscriptions online, and planned to take the
web subscribers to a paid version once they got the full paper up.  However,
this never happened, don't know why.  Nonetheless, there have been
unlooked-for benefits for the NY Times.

I know that in the New York City area, people have a greater sense of
affection for, and loyalty to, the the Times.  Don't know if that translated
into ad revenue, add'l subscribers, but I assume it did, per the following,
all my own observations:

As web subscriber, and, formerly a reader who bought from the newsstand
occasionally, I buy the paper more regularly now.  I feel a sense of
personal connection to it, because it's always there serving me.  Their
content and presentation has improved: the paper is still extremely reliable
in its news quality and very well-written, but its style is more current and
the range of subjects covered is much wider.  I used to read 2 of its 4 or 5
sections.  I now read the paper virtually cover to cover when I buy it, and
I buy it most days now.

Their feedback from the web site has informed their editorial decisions over
the past few years, driving things like a layout change for the Sunday Times
Magazine, editorial style changes, different content focuses, etc. and
additional sections on some days during the week (a new technology section
each Thursday, called "Circuits" with decent user-level product reviews,
news and concept articles, and lots of commercial ads, an additional
"Automobiles" section each Friday, with a single page of articles on its
first page, and the rest commercial and classified ads).  It's clear they
are way more in touch with their audience than they were pre-web.  They were
considered stodgy, and were only carried in upscale neighborhoods'
newsstands and publication shops five years ago.  Now they're everywhere,
because the demand is everywhere.  They are not only reaching a wider
audience in terms of what they choose to publish, they are more in sync with
their audience in terms of publishing certain things on certain days (like
that new "Automobiles" section, just in time for people to check the ads
Friday night, instead of having to wait for a Sunday paper).

There is little on the actual paper portion of the web site that is not in
the printed paper, percent-of-content-wise.  There are a few areas in the
technology section that are unique to the site, and of course there are lots
of apportunities for interactivity -- links galore, the chance to send
e-mail to the Op-Ed page, letters column, various column authors,
interactive jobs and real-estate ads searching, but except for the
additional areas of tech subjects, the web version of the paper just offers
different ways to use the paper, not much new content.

Extra-paper, however, the story is different: there are a lot of active
forums, there's an archive that sells reprints of any article that's more
than a day old for $2.00 through QPass, and there's a section called "New
York Today" that acts as a NYC area entertainment portal.  They don't send
entertainment and technology-related articles and reviews to the archives,
but keep them active for quite a long period of time, accessible free of
charge, I assume because they get heavy click-throughs on related ads,
and/or because they're collecting stats on articles or reviews that they can
correlate with increased business at the theaters, restaurants, etc.,
reviewed, that would let them up their ad rates.

Disclaimer: all the above is based on my own observations, no factual
knowledge otherwise.

"Daniel J. Cody" wrote:

> From: "Jack Freeman" <jfreeman at mvillage.com>
> To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
> Subject: On line Newspapers
> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 08:32:23 -0500
> Organization: Web Link Internet Design
>
> Greetings All,
> I have a simple question. I am working on web based version of an =
> established sports newspaper. I am looking for statistics or your =
> insights into what is the relationship between having an on line version
> =
> and subscriptions to the newspaper. In other words does having an online
> =
> version hurt or help subscriptions? Your comments and links would be =
> most appreciated.=20
>
> Thanks,
> Jack Freeman
> Email- jfreeman at mvillage.com=20
> Blue and Gold Illustrated - www.blueandgold.com=20

Cheers,
--
Heather Quinn
hgquinn at attglobal.net
http://pws.prserv.net/windyhill






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