Such a shame - Harper's often has really good content. I picked one up randomly at a train station once and was hooked. Too bad they're not giving more people a chance to discover that.
Agreed - I think this is the right interpretation of the analyst. Revenue from a subscriber would be higher than ad revenue per user, so the NYT would need fewer subscribers than it currently has consumers. No argument there. But how many people will sign up? No comment in the article - hopefully the analyst's report addresses that question!
Judging by the fact that as of this morning it appeared that every link from their homepage was broken (wouldn't load in Chrome), the technology behind this should run seamlessly. I take it that is one of the remaining 200 glitches. I'll be interested to see if they have trouble with shifting customer expectations for reliability - if I'm paying for something that doesn't work, I'm mad.
This actually isn't quite as crazy as it sounds on its face. One of BigDough's products is time-sensitive, a list of people who have joined or left various companies, which comes out every night at midnight. (They actually call it "Hot News.") I agree that the hot news doctrine itself is troubling, but if they're trying to apply it to this "news" product, that makes more sense than trying to claim hot news doctrine over the database. I'd imagine that's what's going on here.
No mention here of the restriction on streaming the video in question, I notice - the "inventory management" argument really breaks down when you're talking about streaming digital files. They try to sell it as an improvement by investing the savings into beefing up streaming, but wouldn't it be better still (by that logic) to restrict physical rentals but enable streaming? Of course, they're restricted by yesterday's business models from the studios, so I'm not sure what their options are - but this is just intellectually dishonest.
Such a shame - Harper's often has really good content. I picked one up randomly at a train station once and was hooked. Too bad they're not giving more people a chance to discover that.
Re:
Agreed - I think this is the right interpretation of the analyst. Revenue from a subscriber would be higher than ad revenue per user, so the NYT would need fewer subscribers than it currently has consumers. No argument there. But how many people will sign up? No comment in the article - hopefully the analyst's report addresses that question!
Judging by the fact that as of this morning it appeared that every link from their homepage was broken (wouldn't load in Chrome), the technology behind this should run seamlessly. I take it that is one of the remaining 200 glitches. I'll be interested to see if they have trouble with shifting customer expectations for reliability - if I'm paying for something that doesn't work, I'm mad.
Well ...
This actually isn't quite as crazy as it sounds on its face. One of BigDough's products is time-sensitive, a list of people who have joined or left various companies, which comes out every night at midnight. (They actually call it "Hot News.") I agree that the hot news doctrine itself is troubling, but if they're trying to apply it to this "news" product, that makes more sense than trying to claim hot news doctrine over the database. I'd imagine that's what's going on here.
Re: Re:
Yeah, it was a lot easier when we could just hate on Bush. Having a nuanced view of a politician is so much more cognitively taxing.
Streaming?
No mention here of the restriction on streaming the video in question, I notice - the "inventory management" argument really breaks down when you're talking about streaming digital files. They try to sell it as an improvement by investing the savings into beefing up streaming, but wouldn't it be better still (by that logic) to restrict physical rentals but enable streaming? Of course, they're restricted by yesterday's business models from the studios, so I'm not sure what their options are - but this is just intellectually dishonest.
The "scams" label seems harsh there, Mike. Maybe it's not a good value for everyone, but a subscription usually isn't a scam.
Shame
It's disappointing to see that he's such a nut about this, because the books are really quite good.