New York Times fast facts and future

So, my love affair with the New York Times continues despite my rapid expansion of consciousness in alternate news sources. I just feel at home when I am exploring the world through their website. So, I will devote a post to recent happenings at the New York Times company, accompanied by my commentary of course.

So, the good news... the NY Times posted a quarterly profit in Q1 2010! Hold the champagne though, total revenue dropped by 3.2 percent. Unsurprisingly, the decrease was driven by loss of print advertising revenue (down 12%), and mitigated by an increase in digital revenue (up 18%). About.com (Owned by the NYT Co.) posted stronger ad gains than the digital news division (up 30% and 11.2% respectively). With these trends likely to continue, it is not hard to see the day that the majority of revenue will come from digital advertising. This fact will prompt the company to make the very real decision whether the high fixed costs of printing are warranted.

Of course, I see opportunity here. Printing technology has already advanced to the point we can print a 300 page bound book in under 4 minutes. While still expensive, we know what happens to the price of a technology. If you want a paper, pull up the printer ready version and print it out at the office, the newsstand, coffee shop, or even at home if it becomes cheap enough. Thus, the Times has just exported the costs of printing, hell, they can even own the machines and lease them out for a profit.

Onto the next topic... the ipad application. Initially, an editors choice edition has been offered for free, soon to be followed by a premium paid subscription model. So far reviews have pretty consistently placed the free app below expectations set by the Times leadership. Slideshows, sharing, and navigation have not attained revolutionary status, but I'll give them some time to develop the paid model before I pass judgment. But really, the developers need to wow customers with some features that have never been seen before.

Again, I am tempted to put my ideas in the pot... I really want an easily navigable, comprehensive, and commented/tagged record of all the articles I read. There are many times when I spend 15 minutes finding an article i read three weeks ago so I can remember the details or send it to a friend. Also, while we are on sharing... a great way to get wider adoption of the premium ipad app would be drag and drop sharing with other paid users. I can just point to your name and that article will pop up in your reader when you sign in... way better than emailing! The algorithms or friends that recommend articles will create a valuable reason to use the paid model.

Moving right along...Ken Doctor wrote an interesting piece called "New York Times Local 2.0?" on paidcontent.org and his blog. The NY Times is planning to offer a local edition in 10-15 markets "relatively soon." I was intrigued... local digital advertising is much more lucrative: Joel Kramer of the MinnPost reports he gets $15/thousand impressions for local and $0.50/thousand for a national audience (pg 10). The times could easily set up some local reporters, put those stories front and center for IP addresses in that city only, and sell some intrusive but lucrative local advertising. I just thought, "FINALLY!" I almost screamed when I read further and found they are planning to PRINT local editions. Why? Why? Why?

The Times has such a great brand, fantastic content, and wide internet readership... They are the Titanic chugging through a huge storm, well positioned to make it, but not guaranteed. I just hope they will start making smarter little decisions that will actually get them to the other side. If they don't, I will tell my grandkids stories of the time I spent with the Times... of course they will have no idea why they couldn't see the writing on the screen.