A User-First Framework for Sustaining Local News - Harvard ...

elationship with its most loyal, online‐only readers—the users bearing the biggest
burden of its new pay plan. 37
Key to preserving that relationship will be creating sufficient new value to support
new charges. “It is not enough to make content informative, relevant, interesting and
believable,” Picard, the media economist, has written. “To gain loyal audiences willing
to provide the financial support needed for the future, news organizations must provide
engaging, pleasing and memorable experiences to their users.” 38
Sharing the stage with Apple CEO Steve Jobs during the January 2010 introduction
of the iPad, Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president of digital operations for The New
York Times Company, claimed the user experience enabled by the paper’s IPad
application reflects “the best of print and the best of digital, all rolled up into one.”
Interestingly, Apple Senior Vice President Scott Forstall envisioned a user experience
drawn more from the analog than digital worlds: “IPad is the best way to browse the
Web for the same reasons that it just feels right to hold a book or a magazine or a
newspaper as you read them. It just feels right—to hold the Internet in your hands as
you surf it.” 39
It’s unclear whether interacting with New York Times content on the iPad will
become the kind of “memorable experience” called for by Picard, but it does suggest the
wisdom of publishers creating “paid experience” as a substantial portion of whatever
content they limit to paying customers.
Subscription services on news Web sites typically fall into two main categories: blunt
and less so. The former limits all or most online content to print subscribers or customers
paying an online surcharge. The latter includes several variations, including targeted
services aimed at such hobbies as sports; memberships designed to serve users’
professional as well as high‐stakes personal interests such as investing; metered access
that permits a certain number of stories to be viewed in any given period; donations on a
one‐time or ongoing basis.
The biggest downside to walling off content is the loss of advertising revenue caused
by reduced traffic. That’s the problem that prompted The New York Times to lift user fees
on its Times Select service for columnists in September 2007, despite 227,000 paying
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