New York Times Ends "Times Select"

Hooray! We get to read Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd again without having to pay a fee. The Times says their online paid subscription plan worked for them but now they are ending it. So it must not have been all that wonderful for them. From Today's Times:

"The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web
site, effective at midnight Tuesday night. The move comes two years to the
day after The Times began the subscription program, Times Select...What changed, The
Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search
engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect
readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to
pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen
as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.
“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would
be generated by Google, by Yahoo and
some others,” Ms. Schiller said."

This move is good for Times readers. I hope it's good for the Times.

Jim

PHOTO: Ocean view from our Cherry Grove roof deck. Next year we may be looking into someones bedroom instead, unfortunately.