New York Times adds reader comments to front page (of web site)

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

New York Times adds reader comments to front page (of web site)

by Brad Linder Oct 12th 2007

The New York Times and other papers are facing a conundrum. On the one hand, people are canceling their paper subscriptions left and right. That's largely because they can get the news online for free. And when papers like the Times try to charge people for access to web content many readers just look elsewhere for their news.

Enter the brave new world of online advertising. Newspapers generally aren't making the kind of money from online ads as they did from print ads and subscriptions. But advertising revenue is going up. And if the Times can build the kind of brand loyalty online using Web 2.0 techniques as it did offline using Print 1.0, the company could be rolling in dough. Or at least it could stay afloat.

Earlier this year, the New York Times announced plans to open up its archives and make available articles that had previously only been available to paying customers. The company also embraced search engine optimization techniques, pushing its web traffic way up (even though the same move now means that Google will often return a 15 year old newspaper article as a top search result even when it's not the most relevant article by a long shot).

Now it looks like the paper is taking a major step to engage users by putting reader comments on the front page of the paper. Right under the photo of the day's top stories. Is this act alone going to save the newspaper industry? Probably not. But it shows that the mainstream media are learning a few tricks from blogs. It's only fair. Every now and again bloggers actually learn a thing or two from mainstream media, like how to cover the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a good news story.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

Tags: comments, new-york-times, newspaper-industry, newspapers, reader-comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Fred Thompson said 5:39PM on 10-12-2007

Yeah, this won't last that long. People will flood the captions with things like, "George Bush laughs as he plots world domination." or, "Al Gore grins the way only a lobotomized lunatic could."

Marcelo said 11:07PM on 10-12-2007

I agree. It wont last.

http://www.spymac.com/details/?2266819

MarC

ross said 8:56AM on 10-13-2007

The comments have been there on/off for quite a while now. At least five months.

All comments at the times must be approved by a moderator (often the reporter). And the ones that go on the front page are most likely selected for that position, not automatically placed there.

Fred Thompson said 11:44PM on 10-13-2007

My point was a large number of responses, especially with a human moderator, adds cost. Interaction does not automatically equate to profit. NYTimes has an outdated business model; pushing editorial content to a captive audience. If their goal is to continue to shrink and turn into a chat group, this idea will help. Otherwise, all they're doing is increasing the editorial content and increasing cost. The comment about ad revenune is incredibly naive.

Marc Savoy said 10:42AM on 10-15-2007

Conundrum, indeed. The New York Times recently returned to its all-free content model after several months of a premium-content subscription service..They added up the numbers and realized overall revenue decreased
as a function of the two-tiered system.

If the vaunted New York Times can't make a go of it what does it say about the industry as a whole? The Wall Street Journal has managed to buck this trend but at what cost? The walled-in, subscription-only model leads to less
market penetration/circulation overall and diminished exposure of its advertisers a trade-off the Wall Street Journal seems willing to deal with

James said 4:20PM on 10-15-2007

I assume they have at least one human involved in the process. They even picked "balanced" quotes for the displayed comments: raving leftist, and slightly-right-of-center. For the NYT, that's pretty damn good.

James said 10:08PM on 10-15-2007

Mark said 6:36PM on 10-16-2007

@1 I disagree. Do you see the number of comments in the screen shot? 722!! If they are getting 722 comments on just one article, they are probably making a fortune in ad revenue from these commentaters and comment readers who are clicking away at advertisements.

The Globe and Mail already has comments for articles and have for a while now with success. Whenever I read a news article I always look for the comments section to gauge the reaction of fellow readers.

Freedom of Speach for the win!

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