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TL;DR The New York Times remains a newspaper with a website attached. It is optimized for: - one distribution channel (newsstands / deliveries) - one format

by Pitarou 12y ago

TL;DR The New York Times remains a newspaper with a website attached. It is optimized for: - one distribution channel (newsstands / deliveries) - one format (big sheets of paper) - one consumption pattern (peruse the current edition, then throw it away) - one production pattern (professional journalists) - one means of attracting eyeballs (the front page / home page) The digital folk are enormously frustrated. They know they could do so much better, if the organisation would get behind them. Time after time, they miss opportunities to: - repackage old content that remains relevant, or becomes relevant again - promote curated collections of material - monitor the "online impact" of stories - take advantage of user-generated content - and so on... So they get their lunch stolen by the likes of the Huffington Post. The infrastructure and processes are also lacking. There are too many one-offs and "just make it work now" hacks, and material is not tagged properly.

cpeterso 12y ago
The saddest part was The Huffington Post would repackage syndicated New York Times content and get way more traffic.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  nah, the saddest part is that old media doesn't realize why Huffington Post, Drudge, and others, are in and they are not. that being people are no longer stuck with a news and opinion source which does not appeal to them, either intellectually or politically. It doesn't matter how well you package it, if the customer doesn't like the message putting flowers on it won't make it more appealing to them
  - xtx23 12y ago
    If content providers only tailor their views toward reader sentiment, what you will end up with is a self-pleasing knowledge bubble in which you rule out anything that doesn't please you as non-existence. That's more of a social disease than the path to a better future. Think there will be and need to be a place for traditional type of journalism with more materials based on critical thinking. It just may not need to be on print media anymore. The aggregation of other people's content and shameless attention grab can only last so long and it doesn't build toward any credible production of original content. Its primary purpose is to kill boredom and create marketing buzz. Shitty content may appeal to more people these days, just like Bieber might sell more records but there will always be room for quality content and engaging dialogues in this world. The challenge is all about finding a new medium and tending the old flames in a new form.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    That's certainly the common wisdom these days. But the point the report was making was that HP et al repackaged NYT content and did better with it than the NYT did themselves. In this case it is explicitly the packaging that matters.
xtx23 12y ago
Times seems to have more mobile content already though...not entirely in one format.
lugg 12y ago
Thanks I was really interested in reading their insights but its quite a long read.
- louhike 12y ago
  Yes but it is really interesting though. If you have the time to read it later, I recommend you to do so.
NicoJuicy 12y ago
Don't read TL;DR, the report is actually interesting and applicable on a lot of projects / startups
- zwieback 12y ago
  I second that - worthwhile read.
- tomek_zemla 12y ago
  Absolutely. The common theme I found here (after many years of consulting) is disconnect between different divisions, namely journalism, technology and business. I have seen it in many other companies small and large. It seems like such an obvious solution to get people to work together and make sure that they will make an effort to understand other domains not only their own. I would certainly expect the leadership of such prominent institution as NYT to grasp that and make it part of the culture. Certainly if they hope to extend their existence into 21st century! The mention of an engineer quitting because the person was not allowed to attend editors meetings just broke my heart. This kind of attitude in the digital age is like sabotaging NYT by setting its building on fire...
chimeracoder 12y ago
> The New York Times remains a newspaper with a website attached. I think it's more accurate to say that the internal culture at the NYT is fragmented - there's a portion that either is or wants to be digital-first, and a portion that still doesn't understand that. Furthermore, they are dealing with existing infrastructure and organizational structures that were originally optimized for a print-first business model, so the inertial "default" ends up being biased slightly towards print-first. That said, this is the same shift that all of the traditional "old media" establishments have to make. Most (if not all) of the companies that the Times is being compared to in that document were created in the digital era (Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Gawker, etc.)[0]. I'd still say that the NYTimes has made the "new media shift far better than any of the other traditional, "old media" establishments. Perhaps all of those publications will end up failing - it's certainly possible. But if any succeed, my money would be on the Times. [0] Also, as pointed out elsewhere, they all are primarily resellers of content, as opposed to companies that primarily generate their own content. They are also certainly not known for the quality of their own original journalism the way to the extent the Times is.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
Does Huffington Post have any quality content? Any time I go to them they seem like the Yahoo Answers of news.
samyxp17 12y ago
How to increase traffic on nytimes.com: Reasoning - Businessinsider.com, buzzfeed.com & huffingtonpost.com are loaded with aggregated content. Not all of it is great, often it is old news or a meme from 3 months ago. But, every piece of content is carefully designed and crafted to produce as many clicks as possible. It's laughable at times how headlines are rewritten and sexed up to get you to click. As soon as you realized that it's the same article you read 2 weeks ago on nytimes.com but with better images, a nice interactive chart and a youtube video you might feel bad for a second or two but the damage is done - product sold. === 7 NYTIMES Homepage Ideas === 1) DESIGN: Simpler - less noise - scannable (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/) Too much noise on the homepage - yes we know you produce 25,000 articles everyday but we can't read all of it in 2 minutes - Make it easier to scan - my eyes should not be going left - right and up - down constantly. 2) HEADLINES - Please make them more interesting - more to the point - shorter - Tell us what the article is really about - A/B test them live. 3) VIDEOS More videos - not one-offs but branded segments with style and character and good production value - with an actual point of view or focus not some bland summary like "Ok this is what happened today in Washington ..." - we can get that anywhere. The folks at theverge.com do a good job of that - please copy, adapt & iterate. 4) SECTIONS: Books,Music,TV,Restaurants You can read a great book review on nytimes.com but you can't download a sample or add it to "Book to read later" list, or take any meaningful action on that book - fix it. Same deal for movies, restaurants or TV shows. I'd suggest some integration with Netflix/Amazon/iTunes/Google/Spotify. 5) TRAVEL - Again, great read but all you can do is save a link to that article for your next vacation -- not good enough. Suggestion - mobile service/app/map integration that keeps track of those favorite reviews and notifies you, the next time you walk into that restaurant so you'll know what not order. 6) What do I want to read next ? Articles read + (Netflix info + Amazon info + Spotify info + Other services/purchases) = ??? If you can data-mined at least some of that you could have a good enough answer most of the time. 7) KILL THE PAYWALL For the overwhelming majority of users this is a big NO. As an added bonus to a Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription ... maybe. BONUS: Better search & filtering -

by Pitarou 12y ago

cpeterso 12y ago

The saddest part was The Huffington Post would repackage syndicated New York Times content and get way more traffic.

Shivetya 12y ago
nah, the saddest part is that old media doesn't realize why Huffington Post, Drudge, and others, are in and they are not. that being people are no longer stuck with a news and opinion source which does not appeal to them, either intellectually or politically. It doesn't matter how well you package it, if the customer doesn't like the message putting flowers on it won't make it more appealing to them
- xtx23 12y ago
  If content providers only tailor their views toward reader sentiment, what you will end up with is a self-pleasing knowledge bubble in which you rule out anything that doesn't please you as non-existence. That's more of a social disease than the path to a better future. Think there will be and need to be a place for traditional type of journalism with more materials based on critical thinking. It just may not need to be on print media anymore. The aggregation of other people's content and shameless attention grab can only last so long and it doesn't build toward any credible production of original content. Its primary purpose is to kill boredom and create marketing buzz. Shitty content may appeal to more people these days, just like Bieber might sell more records but there will always be room for quality content and engaging dialogues in this world. The challenge is all about finding a new medium and tending the old flames in a new form.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  That's certainly the common wisdom these days. But the point the report was making was that HP et al repackaged NYT content and did better with it than the NYT did themselves. In this case it is explicitly the packaging that matters.

xtx23 12y ago

Times seems to have more mobile content already though...not entirely in one format.

lugg 12y ago

Thanks I was really interested in reading their insights but its quite a long read.

louhike 12y ago
Yes but it is really interesting though. If you have the time to read it later, I recommend you to do so.

NicoJuicy 12y ago

Don't read TL;DR, the report is actually interesting and applicable on a lot of projects / startups

zwieback 12y ago
I second that - worthwhile read.
tomek_zemla 12y ago
Absolutely. The common theme I found here (after many years of consulting) is disconnect between different divisions, namely journalism, technology and business. I have seen it in many other companies small and large. It seems like such an obvious solution to get people to work together and make sure that they will make an effort to understand other domains not only their own. I would certainly expect the leadership of such prominent institution as NYT to grasp that and make it part of the culture. Certainly if they hope to extend their existence into 21st century! The mention of an engineer quitting because the person was not allowed to attend editors meetings just broke my heart. This kind of attitude in the digital age is like sabotaging NYT by setting its building on fire...

chimeracoder 12y ago

> The New York Times remains a newspaper with a website attached. I think it's more accurate to say that the internal culture at the NYT is fragmented - there's a portion that either is or wants to be digital-first, and a portion that still doesn't understand that. Furthermore, they are dealing with existing infrastructure and organizational structures that were originally optimized for a print-first business model, so the inertial "default" ends up being biased slightly towards print-first. That said, this is the same shift that all of the traditional "old media" establishments have to make. Most (if not all) of the companies that the Times is being compared to in that document were created in the digital era (Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Gawker, etc.)[0]. I'd still say that the NYTimes has made the "new media shift far better than any of the other traditional, "old media" establishments. Perhaps all of those publications will end up failing - it's certainly possible. But if any succeed, my money would be on the Times. [0] Also, as pointed out elsewhere, they all are primarily resellers of content, as opposed to companies that primarily generate their own content. They are also certainly not known for the quality of their own original journalism the way to the extent the Times is.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

Does Huffington Post have any quality content? Any time I go to them they seem like the Yahoo Answers of news.

samyxp17 12y ago

How to increase traffic on nytimes.com: Reasoning - Businessinsider.com, buzzfeed.com & huffingtonpost.com are loaded with aggregated content. Not all of it is great, often it is old news or a meme from 3 months ago. But, every piece of content is carefully designed and crafted to produce as many clicks as possible. It's laughable at times how headlines are rewritten and sexed up to get you to click. As soon as you realized that it's the same article you read 2 weeks ago on nytimes.com but with better images, a nice interactive chart and a youtube video you might feel bad for a second or two but the damage is done - product sold. === 7 NYTIMES Homepage Ideas === 1) DESIGN: Simpler - less noise - scannable (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/ http://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-users-read-on-the-web/) Too much noise on the homepage - yes we know you produce 25,000 articles everyday but we can't read all of it in 2 minutes - Make it easier to scan - my eyes should not be going left - right and up - down constantly. 2) HEADLINES - Please make them more interesting - more to the point - shorter - Tell us what the article is really about - A/B test them live. 3) VIDEOS More videos - not one-offs but branded segments with style and character and good production value - with an actual point of view or focus not some bland summary like "Ok this is what happened today in Washington ..." - we can get that anywhere. The folks at theverge.com do a good job of that - please copy, adapt & iterate. 4) SECTIONS: Books,Music,TV,Restaurants You can read a great book review on nytimes.com but you can't download a sample or add it to "Book to read later" list, or take any meaningful action on that book - fix it. Same deal for movies, restaurants or TV shows. I'd suggest some integration with Netflix/Amazon/iTunes/Google/Spotify. 5) TRAVEL - Again, great read but all you can do is save a link to that article for your next vacation -- not good enough. Suggestion - mobile service/app/map integration that keeps track of those favorite reviews and notifies you, the next time you walk into that restaurant so you'll know what not order. 6) What do I want to read next ? Articles read + (Netflix info + Amazon info + Spotify info + Other services/purchases) = ??? If you can data-mined at least some of that you could have a good enough answer most of the time. 7) KILL THE PAYWALL For the overwhelming majority of users this is a big NO. As an added bonus to a Netflix or Amazon Prime subscription ... maybe. BONUS: Better search & filtering -