This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, June 9.
The New York Times
Now the Times has announced the arrival of a new app, nytOpinion.
In making the announcement, Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor, wrote:
“It’s the first time we have offered a stand-alone subscription to all of The New York Times’s opinion coverage, and it will be available on the web and in our new NYT Opinion-dedicated iPhone app.
“For the first time, readers like you can opt for unlimited access to just our section
“Our beautiful new app, NYT Opinion, contains two main streams of information: Today, which will bring you all the articles from The Times’s opinion section, including blogs from columnists and editorial writers, plus exclusive Q&As with our writers, and other new features. The other stream, Op-Talk, will comb through the oceans of online commentary and select the most compelling from all over the world – courtesy of a new team of Times editors.
The new Opinion app will work as follows: it is a new kind of subscription, opinion-only, that customers can purchase for $6 per month. For $78 per year, the subscription allows customers to use the nytOpinion app and to access any opinion story on nytimes.com.
The template is set
Here is my imagining how the Theater and Fashion Times apps could be
I imagine that the Times will be looking closely at this app and its subscription strategy to decide on future such apps.
I, for one,would envision a nytTheater (of which I would be a fan and one of the first to subscribe), and nytFashion (the sky is the limit for what could be done here with video, for example).
The Times' folks are not the only ones watching with curiosity and interest. Publishing people everywhere are taking notice.
What the nytOpinion app reminds us of are three important and current trends:
1. A change in our notion of frequency. The Times seems to be saying: We are putting one of our best and most respected sections, Opinion, right in your pocket, and allow you to sample when and where you wish to do so.
2. Exploiting (finally) the various platforms of the media quartet for what they can do best. It would have never made sense to separate Opinion from the rest of the Times although I have known people who claimed that that all that they read in the Times. With digital, it does not only make sense, but it is just right to do so.
3. Accepting and endorsing the idea that people do read on their smartphones, something that will be even more obvious when the current generation of middle school children become adults.
Indeed, the time is perfect for nytOpinion. I applaud the Times' management for this initiative, one that goes beyond highlighting the importance of the Times' opinion content, to usher in the era of digital journalism at its best, with the spirit of everywhereness, interruptions and distractions as part of it, but without losing sight of what always made those opinion pages of the Times essential reading.