Month: December 2012

I am a NYTimes subscriber. I “browse” the digital edition daily. I receive the Weekend edition in print, which I tend to “read.” What I want is a “surround” service that is something in between digital and print, and I’ll pay for it. I believe the NYTimes has the technology to make the following idea happen…

I want a weekly print edition based on my daily reading habits and selections. I want a digital “dashboard” where these articles live in an archive.

Here’s how it will work:

• Add a check box to articles. As I’m reading the digital edition, let me chose which articles I’d like to read in print as part of the Weekend edition. The NYTimes could then print these articles as part of an additional printed section. They could then display specific adds (at a higher value) against this content based on what I’ve chosen.
• For each article I’ve chosen, The NYTimes would then scour their rich archives for related articles going back 5 to 10 years. They’d add up to 5 of these related articles to my weekly print edition (in a “related” section), which allows them to display even more relevant ads to me.
• As time progresses past the first few weeks, the NYTimes would begin to see my reading habits and send me relevant “recommended” articles to add to the “related: section. These could be from sections of the paper I don’t regularly read (such as the Travel section).
• In tandem to the above, the NYTimes would create a “news dashboard” for me, to see my history of articles and prompt me to answer simple questions such as “do you want to read more science?” which would help them send me more (or less) science articles as part of the “recommended” part of the section.

If the NYTimes offered this as a premium service, I would pay for it. This way they are making new revenues off of the “value” of what they already have, while providing me a more valuable service. FTW!