Ask and ye shall receive:
Posted on 01/18/2006 2:38:27 PM PST by Brian Mosely
The Bubble Tightens! According to E&P, he New York Times has
decided that only TimesSelect subscribers should be allowed to e-mail Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, David Brooks, et al.
Not only do you have be a paid ($49.95 for non-print-subscribers) TimesSelect purchaser, but
instead of being able to put an address in a mail program and fire it off at your leisure, TimesSelect subscribers now have to fill out an online form similar to the generic feedback forms found on many Web sites.
Previous TimesSelect experiments deprived the paper's columnists of having their voices heard. This one threatens to deprive them of having interesting things to say in the first place. Not just bad business. Bad journalism. Columnists get tips over email! They get interesting information from like-minded souls, and interesting information from readers who despise them. The Times would give up this Webby power for a mess of Pinch pottage! Now columnists will only hear from those who've paid to be inside the paper's mainly-liberal New York-centric cocoon.
As a result of the disastrous TimesSelect experiment, the paper has begun to formally, technically cut itself off from the world of non-Times readers. (The analogy is imprecise, but imagine what the Times would say if the Bush White House decided to only take emails from citizens who'd registered at, say, a Republican-leaning Web site.)
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I don't think beyond Soros anyone is paying to do that.
This has everything to do with all of the leaking going on at the NYT.
Some baaaaad things must be popping up on reporters' hard drives regarding NSA, Fitzmas, etc etc. This is a way to control the flow and place the blame on the leaker.
This takes being "closed minded" to an art form...
Nah, I think they can't stand the cognative dissonance they get when confronted with reality vs. what they print.
I heard they intend to encircle the building with a concrete wall.
"..The Times has been reluctant to provide the most recent data on TimesSelect subscribers, last revealing more than a month ago that some 330,000 people had signed up for TimesSelect. About half of those are believed to be print subscribers who receive complimentary Web access as part of their home delivery plan.."
It will be interesing to see how TimesSelect does. If it tanks, the columnists are not as big a draw as the Times believes. The Times has a lot riding on this.
The Politburo determined a long time ago that it doesn't need feedback, just obedience. When you already know the truth and understand the direction of history, reader responses and ideas from outside the party aren't important considerations, except to quash or eliminate. So stop complaining and get with the program.
Pay to get Paul Krugman????? Why not just pay to get crapped on???
It is not as if Krugman and Dowd were listening to anything anybody said, anyway...
Funny thing about all of these newspapers making part if not all of their content subscriber based...
It will only hasten their demise and show how ineffectual their content is in the marketplace of ideas. After all, what advertiser really wants to reach 100,000 people that paid to see content as opposed to 1,000,000 that may have had access to that content for free.
From an advertising standpoint do the math.
Figure a $10.00 CPM to reach 1,000,000 online viewers. Ad value $10,000.
Same $10 CPM to reach 100,000 online viewers. Ad value $1,000.
Subscription revenue annually from 100,000 subscribers paying $49.95 a month $4,995,000.
Now how many subscribers would they need for cutting ad revenue potential like that? Better yet, how many non Kool Aid drinkers could they attract for that fee?
I wouldn't pay one thin dime for NYT columnists or reporters. I didn't read them when the cost nothing.
Oh the turmoil of all my favorite people being out of reach.
/s
I am entitled to a TimesSelect subscription, since I subscribe to the print version. I have yet to sign up, though. I got a phone call the other day offering to sign me up, but I told them no. Then I got an automated phone call telling me my username and password.
I wonder if they count me as "signed up" now...
Ask and ye shall receive:
There is a market for that, you know.
Yes, but they already subscribe to the NY Times.
What about the poor? ... Oh, that's right - Liberals don't listen to the poor, they just play the "poor card" when they want to manipulate and use them. Maybe the Slimes will have a "Poor Peoples Special" subscription rate when it gets closer to the election. And maybe they could have a special "Retirees Rate" subscription around Halloween. Dems always scare retirees just before an election and the timing would be perfect.
I have heard that newspapers are strongest in old demographics, which is not good news for them long term.
My guess is that their "TimesSelect" program will not do well and that they will have to keep their results from the public to avoid embarrassment.
I've heard they plan to build the biggest pyramid ever built and when it is completed, kill and entomb all their workers and staff as their legacy of once having ruled the planet.
Tell me again, who lives in a bubble?
LOL
ping
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