All the News That’s Fit to Text
February 4, 2008
Mickey Alam Khan is editor in chief of Mobile Marketer
That tag line sounds pretty snazzy, right? Perhaps The New York Times should use it for its mobile site – a neat model for other news publishers to follow.
The Times is one of the leading newspapers nationwide along with USA Today and the Washington Post. It also considers itself the newspaper of record, hence its longstanding tag line for the print publication, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” That logic was extended to NYTimes.com, one of the most heavily visited news sites nationwide, with a variation of the old tag – “All the News That’s Fit to Click.”
So it’s only appropriate that we charge nothing and offer for free the rights to “All the News That’s Fit to Text” with the latest text messaging service that The Times has launched. The service will distribute news, features and columns from The Times newspaper and The New York Times Magazine included with the Sunday edition.
“Our strategy is to use every available medium to deliver The Times’ news and information to our readers,” said Rob Larson, vice president of product development and management at The New York Times Co., New York.
“Currently, we are distributing our content through many mobile devices, channels and products such as Times Reader and content on the Amazon Kindle. This new text service gives our readers another way to access our content while they’re on-the-go.”
Moving with the times
Key features
Users can text a keyword to NYTNYT to receive three articles from their chosen section or the most recent column from their favorite columnist. Articles can be read on any mobile device, with the text-message keywords appearing in the appropriate sections of the print newspaper as a guide.
Essentially, readers can find a headline by texting in a section front name such as “business” or “metro,” read an article and forward it to friends or colleagues via the “Send to Mobile” mobile article tool.
As it’s currently designed, the publisher’s mobile site at http://mobile.nytimes.com offers top stories of the day from the main sections of NYTimes.com, including blogs and the Most E-Mailed list. The menu is designed like a list with headlines that can be clicked on. Mobile readers will be able to retrieve stock quotes and market indices, check the weather, search movie show times by ZIP code, see the latest movie reviews and access the publication’s real estate listings.
Like other publications, the service is free, but standard carrier charges may apply.
“Since it launched, our mobile site has experienced enormous growth in page views,” Mr. Larson said, without elaborating on the actual numbers. “We want to continue this growth as we increase the exposure of The Times’ brand to the millions of mobile users worldwide.
“With the significant increase of mobile users, we want to make it as easy as possible for consumers to get direct access to our headlines and articles while they are on-the-go,” he said.
One issue with the mobile site is the paucity of advertisements when compared with the NYTimes.com site. It may change once advertisers are OK with the idea of a slivered ad or video on a smaller, but crisper screen. But The Times has the right idea: it’s selling mobile as part of a multichannel media buy.
“We work with our advertisers to build compelling campaigns integrating the newspaper, NYTimes.com, our mobile site and now text messaging,” Mr. Larson said. “Since the launch of our mobile site, we’ve had great success signing on a roster of blue-chip advertisers, and we’re finding more ways to add value for them as well.”
GR8T.