Tag Archives: website

The Gray Lady’s 40 Million Dollar Folly

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Or
How, After More Than a Decade, The Times Still Doesn’t Get The Internet

Photo by Graham Biggs

After years of talk, the New York Times finally released details regarding their new pay wall yesterday. Despite receiving mixed reviews, I am failing to see how anyone could see the new Times plan as anything but a bad idea.

First, a little background. The New York Times has attempted a paywall before – and it failed miserably. So have other newspapers, and with the exception of publications that exist in specialized verticals (financials), no paywall has ever really survived. One noted paywall, the Long Island daily Newsday actually saw a mere 35 paying subscribers in its three month trial.

Granted, the new Times Paywall is less a wall and more a Byzantine collection of rules and exceptions that say if and when you can read a Times article.

Everyone gets 20 free articles a month. Links from social media sources and blogs and some search engines will be able to read the article regardless of how many other articles have been read. And readers will always have access to the front page of the site, front page of the sections and some of all the blogs and most of some of them.

Walls have it easy. The Times is putting a crap shoot and a curb between you and the content you want to read.

What’s worse is that there are so many loopholes that anyone with a passing interest in reading any article on the Times website really can. Which leaves paying for access to the website really as more of a punishment for being a less savvy internet user than something that bestows real value.

Of course, in its pricing scheme the all but admits that the website is a free bonus. How so? Well, there’s no way to buy access just to the website. You have to either pay $15 for a four week subscription to the website and the smartphone app, $20 for access to the website and the iPad app, or $35 for access to the web, smartphone and iPad app. The math behind that is crazy, but thankfully Wired already did it.

If A + B = $15 and A + C = $20 and A + B + C = $35, what does A equal?

That answer is 0.

Yes, the New York Times is saying that access to their website is essentially a giveaway value add, but you can’t have that value unless you’re a paying customer. At least not all the time. Well, you can have access when they feel like it.

Of course, nobody is saying that the Times website is worthless, least of all the advertisers. Numbers I’m seeing is that the site took in $300 million last year from ad impressions alone. But, the new pricing and access scheme concocted by the wizards at the Times feels oddly punitive especially when we consider the competitive landscape of publishing news online.

The issue facing the New York Times seems to be multifaceted, and the new paywall will do little to solve it. In fact, if the Times earns back the $40 million paywall investment within the next two years, I will be shocked.

Let’s look at the issue. First, the New York Times is not merely competing on a city or regional level. Hell, they’re not even competing on a national level. They are an international publication and they know this, as the equally vaunted and lauded paywall took effect today in Canada with the rest of world schedule to start on the 28th of this month.

Second, the New York Times is not just competing with other newspapers. News is coming from more and more spaces – all of the newspapers of the world, plus all of the television websites, the vertical websites, blogs, and the recently emerging trend of real time, unedited broadcasts from reporters on location via social networks.

Put these two together and you begin to get the picture of the modern media landscape, people have an abundance of news sources to pull from. The sea of a million periodicals allows a rapid comparing and contrasting of news that puts emphasis on loyalty to story rather than loyalty to brand.

In order to succeed online, the Times needs to stop thinking about coping with the new system while punishing those who play by the old rules and instead move to the golden rule of selling: make people want to give you money.

I know, it sounds simple. But if it were, every product would be a must have. However, since I’ve already come this far, here are just a few suggestions for how to turn the experience behind the paywall into something actually worth paying for.

First, get rid of the freaking ads. I know, newspapers have never been about selling copies and have always survived by amassing an audience and then selling that audience’s attention to advertisers. But, seriously, if I’m paying to be there, I don’t want my experience muddied up by ads.

Second, embrace your subscribers by allowing them to be heard. This is not just an argument for comments, or for restricting commenting to merely paying subscribers. This is an argument for a second commenting system that is restricted to paying customers. Reward these users by not having them mix with the aggressive and argumentative landscape of the public comments system. Allow commenters to interact with each other. And the kicker? Require your staff to participate in the premium comments.

Third, provide access. I don’t mean the current model of access which is determined on a device-by-device basis. That’s a bastardization of infinite supply. I mean real access. Access to reporters. Access to notes on an article and background information. Access to photos that were taken but not used. These are unique items that are often of scarce supply and provide a real value to readers and differentiate the Times website from the millions of others out there.

What’s more, these don’t have to all be included in one plan, they could be rolled out a la carte and at multiple levels. Level one gets you an advertising free Times experience. Level two removes adds and access to the gated community. Level three allows for communication with reporters and peels back the curtain on the story. Hell, level 15 could involve a monthly beer with the editor.

Put bluntly, the Times is selling the wrong thing. They’re trying to get people to pay for infinite and largely fungible content instead of paying for scarce commodities like access and privilege. And that is a damn foolish way to blow $40 million.

Five Important Reasons to have a Writer’s Website

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To say that the internet isn’t going away would be an exercise in understatement. It’s 2009, and the number of people online has surpassed the one billion mark. As a writer, that’s a mind-numbingly large potential audience. And yet, there are still plenty of writers out there without websites. Judging from my readership, you already do, so this might be preaching to the proverbial choir. But, I’m going to do it anyway.

Why should a writer have a website?

Showcase your work

A website is a great place to establish an accessible, readable, and searchable portfolio of the works which make you, the writer, shine. If you’re established, your readers want to read you. If you’re currently establishing yourself, then you can give your reader a reason to want. A writing portfolio should establish desire. How you choose to do that is wholly up to you.

Connect with others

The ability to leave comments on websites has been the standard for better than five years now. Giving readers the ability to comment is a great way to interact with your audience. However, leaving comments on others websites is also an excellent way of meeting and communicating with others in the writing industry – writers, agents, editors, publishers – as well as letting their readers discover you. After all, when you have your own website, you have someplace to link to with your comments.

Practice

The term website and blog have slowly become interchangeable. And for the sake of this post, I’m treating them as synonyms. To that end, a website is a great means to practice the art in which you thrive. It’s also a fantastic method to learn more about yourself as a writer. Why? Articulation often leads to understanding. How many times have you sat down to write about a problem, only to find a solution before you’ve put your pen down?

Brand creation and maintenance

Whether your unpublished or currently on numerous writing short lists, as a writer, you are your own brand. A website is just one tool for establishing a central location for the definitive information on your brand. Or, to put it more bluntly, your writing website is the ultimate guide to you. For more on brand management, I’m recommending this video by Gary Vaynerchuk.

The internet was created for writing

Despite the heaps of love paid to music, photos, and video online, the backbone of the internet was and always will be writing. The internet is a text-based medium. As a writer, this gives you a leg-up on those who don’t embrace the written-word. For a writer to not have a website is to squander that very advantage.

Day of Maintenance

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So, here we are, the new year. And what have I done so far this year? A great deal of behind the scenes work. Just like being a writer today means you spend half the time being a businessman, running a website means a great deal of behind the scenes work. It’s a life of constant tweaking.

wrench

Here’s a list of changes and some helpful hints.

I updated my Portfolio, moving my writing content onto the portfolio’s primary page, deleting the writing only page, and moving my design portfolio to the bottom. Why? Well, my focus isn’t on designing websites, that’s basically a hobby I get paid for. Rather, I’m shifting the focus to my writing.

My Links and Reads Page has undergone a much needed infusion of links to things that I actually read. I read a lot of writing industry-related websites – agents, publishers, other writers – so that I can keep on top of everything that’s going on. This is by no means a comprehensive list, and it’s not even all that I read, but it’s a start in the right direction.

Server Cleanup. As my website has progressed, a lot of information has ended up being left in scraps on my server. I went through and cleaned up all of those scraps. I also added redirects to all of the pages that Google’s Webmaster Tools tell me are currently dead links. I’ve found that this is slightly more helpful than being greeted by a simple 404 error page.

SEO functions. I cruised the net for a few hours today and located about 75 directories which accepted free submissions. One can never have too many inbound links.

Looking Ahead

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It appears that, with the exception of having Thursday off for New Year’s Day, the holiday youngplantseason has officially ended for me and mine. Though, it didn’t quite feel long enough. The trip north took up a week or so, and driving left me in need of a vacation to recover from my vacation. But it was good to get out, to relax, and to finally meet several of my friends from Twitter.

But, now that 2008 – which somehow managed to fly by and feel incredibly long in retrospect – is leaving us, it’s time to look ahead to 2009. I’ve never been one to assign a false list of ideas or resolutions to a coming year, but I am finally settling into a solid working schedule, and so I can slowly tick of items from my mythical “To Do” list.

Here’s a peek at what’s to come:

Resources – I’ve slowly started to compile a list of resources for writers here on my website, things that writer’s often find themselves needing. These run the gamut from rules of thumb, quotes on the industry, articles that I’ve found, and a few pieces of compiled works.

One such work – a list of word count page estimates – is already online in bare bones form. The second major undertaking is a Writer’s Dictionary, a compilation of words and acronyms used to describe, critique, and sell writing.

Links and Reads – Instead of offering up a blog roll, I have instead chosen to include my daily reads on a separate, static page. This helps give the links better oomph in Google, and for the SEO fans out there, allows me to link to sites I read with keywords. Recently, I’ve found about a dozen or blogs that I ported into Google Reader and need to thus include in that page. My reading list tends to stick with industry-related blogs, dealing with general and copy writing, but also the business end – that of the lit agents and editors. It’s by no means complete or authoritative, but it’s growing daily.

In black, of course

In black, of course

Video – For Christmas I received that which I really wanted (at Kelly’s suggestions) – a Flip Mino HD. I also secured a tripod (also at Kelly’s suggestion), and with the help of Kino (an FOSS video editing solution), I plan to start doing short video pieces on a regular basis.

I am currently leaning towards Vimeo for video hosting, but I’m also considering Seesmic and will probably play around with both. If anyone has any suggestions (other than the YouTube), or preferences, I am open to hearing them.