Watching the Times struggle (and what you can learn)

Having your content out there in every possible form is going to lead more people back to your actual site, where you make money on their eyeballs. (If this wasn't the case, then guest columnists wouldn't exist and actors wouldn't promote their movies on late night shows.)

And having the stupid registration wall just turns people away. Sure, it's a very low barrier that I'm happy to surmount for a good article, but there have been many times that I have avoided a nytimes.com article because I just felt too lazy to hit up bugmenot for a fake account. They have kind of gotten away with it because they have a name and decent content, but now that you can find lots of decent content elsewhere, it's just going to hurt them.

Even this alone is enough for a smart startup to succeed in the field of horrible and established competition

The sad truth is most of these organizations just don't "get it."

I remember one newspaper called because another newspaper was linking to their content. They were furious. They somehow correlated other sites linking to their site as "stealing visitors." This paper wasn't stealing content or using any more than allowed, simply linking.

They complain about craigslist taking their classifieds business away while higher-quality niche sites are stealing what little they do have left (pets, autos, houses).

They make partnerships with Yahoo! and are basically giving away their content in return for peanuts (including giving jobs to HotJobs).

They focus on national news when they should be dominating their local market.

The list goes on and on. These people are a dying breed--practically begging to be taken over by faster, leaner, smarter competitors who have 1/10th the staff and no multi-million dollar printing presses to pay off.

You wonder why newspapers are suffering? Its because 95% of them still don't "get it."

I think that comment is a little disingenuous. The Times obviously used Aniston to draw people in, but the content of this week's Sunday Magazine is focused on the same exact issues that Godin is referring to in his post, in this case in relation to motion pictures:

"This year, we’ve stretched the issue to reflect a new reality: when you watch moving pictures these days, a theater is the last place you are likely to be. Cable, YouTube, DVDs, DVR, news briefs in the elevator and cartoons on your cellphone — through a variety of media, we now consume fragmented narratives on multiple screens."

The Times is full of smart people, and they obviously aren't oblivious the changes print media is going through that is similar to what movie/television/video based media is going through. They've already taken small steps in the right direction with introducing editor blogs + comments, etc. More needs to be done, but the trick is finding the happy medium between providing an engaging envrionment while at the same time keeping quality of the publication at a high enough level. That certainly isn't as easy as Godin makes is sound.

Granted the Palin types will never read the Times and never have, but that 10-15% of their readserhip that is gone hurts. It hurts a lot.

seems like common sense, but i guess when you get to be old and venerable you also acquire a stance of complacency. no one is invulnerable however. seth should have reminded nytimes of their mortality about five years ago.