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NY TIME$

As Kevin Drum (and probably hundreds of others) note today:

"NO MORE KRUGMAN, NO MORE BROOKS....The New York Times is planning to put its op-ed page behind a subscription wall? Wow. I predict that's going to go down with New Coke as one of the all-time bad marketing decisions in history."

I agree it is a curious decision, especially at this juncture, after the NY Times just grossly overpaid bought the About.com network. I am sure somewhere there is a long term strategic plan in place and some bean counters/panicky executives made this pitch work, but at a time of record on-line ad revenues what does this gain them? How many people are going to pay? How many people that do pay are going to copy, paste and email all the articles to their friends anyway - articles that will eventually make their way on to websites? What are they going to do, chase after 10,000 bloggers for fair use infractions?

Also, CNN just annouced today that it is planning on making their paid video free, which makes the Times decision even more mysterious.

Frankly what I feel we have working here is the fact that this medium is still so new and so misunderstood that the corporations who need to protect their bottom line are still grasping at straws as to how to properly monetize it. But I'll be damned if I ever pay .02 cents to read an article by David Brooks.

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Posted by: Anthony at September 18, 2007 06:38 AM

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