General
Well That’s that
NY Times archives and content now free again They’re claiming that it was all a huge success! Which is why they’re canceling it. No. Seriously:
The newspaper said the TimesSelect project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.
“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.
What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYtimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to gain access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.
Well this is a positive step. The archives are open back to 1987, which is twenty years and very valuable. And I am looking forward to reading David Brooks again, maybe Friedman. The others, not so much.
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