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New York Times Redesign

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Re: New York Times Redesign

#11

Post by aheu »

ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

Maybe the creation of the content is the expensive part. You still need someone creating it and laying it out on the page with proper graphics. This is just a guess though. I would be curious what their expenses are like digital vs paper.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#12

Post by jld »

ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

The print version is subsidized by a lot of very expensive print space.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#13

Post by kunai »

Most of it is good, but the thing that kills it is the inline comments.

When I want to get down and read an article, I want to get down and read the damn thing, not be faced with comments that most often reiterate whatever's in the article anyway.

Keep the comments where they should be – AFTER the article.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#14

Post by abat »

ddebernardy wrote: post #10
ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

Not sure what you're complaining about... It's $5 for 12 weeks...

That's just the intro price. It's $5/WEEK if you want nytimes.com + tablet apps. That's $260/year instead of $22/year. I would gladly subscribe if the long term rate was $5 for 12 weeks.

See full prices here: http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

Re: New York Times Redesign

#15

Post by crazygringo »

ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

The answer isn't environmentally friendly, but it has solid business logic behind it.

From what I understand, upping their print circulation lets them charge more for print advertisers (which pays more than digital advertisers), so NYT has a strong financial incentive to make the prices for digital/print comparable, in order to try to convince people to get the print version as well, instead of just the digital.

Because all print advertisers know are the circulation numbers -- they have no idea if you're actually opening it up or not, or just sending them all straight to the recycling bin while you read them digitally.

Again, not environmentally friendly. At least it's all recycled though.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#16

Post by crazygringo »

kunai wrote: post #13

Most of it is good, but the thing that kills it is the inline comments. When I want to get down and read an article, I want to get down and read the damn thing, not be faced with comments that most often reiterate whatever's in the article anyway. Keep the comments where they should be – AFTER the article.

I wouldn't knock it until you see it. I'll be curious -- and NYT articles generally have curated "Times' Picks" comments that often genuinely add to the articles. Remember, most articles don't even have comments -- only the ones which the NYT deems comment-worthy, and they do put forth editorial efforts at quality control.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#17

Post by beachstartup »

crazygringo wrote: post #15
ajays wrote: post #8

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but: I would love to subscribe to NYT digital editions, but why must the digital edition cost almost as much as the paper edition? Imagine the waste involved (in energy and materials)! Current home delivery rates are $8.75 for paper, and $5.00 for internet. That is simply too much. Bring it down to $1/week and we'll talk.

The answer isn't environmentally friendly, but it has solid business logic behind it. From what I understand, upping their print circulation lets them charge more for print advertisers (which pays more than digital advertisers), so NYT has a strong financial incentive to make the prices for digital/print comparable, in order to try to convince people to get the print version as well, instead of just the digital. Beca…

yes, the economist does this as well. generalized rule:

in order to promote sales of product X, make it only slightly more expensive than the one it is marginally superior to.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#18

Post by ParkerK »

kunai wrote: post #13

Most of it is good, but the thing that kills it is the inline comments. When I want to get down and read an article, I want to get down and read the damn thing, not be faced with comments that most often reiterate whatever's in the article anyway. Keep the comments where they should be – AFTER the article.

>not be faced with comments that most often reiterate whatever's in the article anyway

The comments are hidden by default it looks like, they won't be in your face unless you want them to be.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#19

Post by fragsworth »

abat wrote: post #14
ddebernardy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you're complaining about... It's $5 for 12 weeks...

That's just the intro price. It's $5/WEEK if you want nytimes.com + tablet apps. That's $260/year instead of $22/year. I would gladly subscribe if the long term rate was $5 for 12 weeks. See full prices here: http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

Yeah, that's too much. And that's just for the NY Times... how many other sites are you supposed to pay for?

I feel like there should be some technical way to handle letting a user pay a flat amount, and distribute the proceeds to the sites you actually visit, in a sort of fair way.

Re: New York Times Redesign

#20

Post by null_ptr »

fragsworth wrote: post #19
abat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just the intro price. It's $5/WEEK if you want nytimes.com + tablet apps. That's $260/year instead of $22/year. I would gladly subscribe if the long term rate was $5 for 12 weeks. See full prices here: http://www.nytimes.com/subscriptions/Multiproduct/lp5558.htm...

Yeah, that's too much. And that's just for the NY Times... how many other sites are you supposed to pay for? I feel like there should be some technical way to handle letting a user pay a flat amount, and distribute the proceeds to the sites you actually visit, in a sort of fair way.

Maybe there should be one umbrella corporation that owns all media sites, that way we could pay the umbrella corporation a monthly fee and be done with it.
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