If you’ve read a recipe in the newspaper and quietly wondered where you would find some of the ingredients, the New York Times has found a new way to solve that problem. They’ve partnered up with Chef’d, an ingredient-delivery service, to create a branded meal subscription that combines the convenience of having your dinner delivered with the cachet of the New York Times brand, yet the inconvenience of having to cook the food yourself. [More]
newspapers
Find A Newspaper Subscription Renewal Notice In The Mail? It Might Be Fake
By 5.3.16
Two years ago, newspapers began warning consumers that subscription renewal notices, which ask for your credit card and personal information, may look legitimate, but are more than likely a ploy by unscrupulous companies to get their hands on your money. Today, the Federal Trade Commission took a step to rein in this scheme by suing the operators of dozens of interrelated companies that send out such notices. [More]
Would You Pay A News Source To Read Individual Articles Online?
By 4.6.15
When you hear a song you like, you might pay $0.99 to buy it. Or perhaps you just really need to get past this one level of Sugar Shock, so you shell out to purchase a new set of lives. What about paying a news source to read just one article? Why not? Micropayments are as ubiquitous as the smartphones we all use nowadays, and one publication thinks the model can work on an article-by-article basis. [More]
Would You Pay 20¢ To Read One Wall Street Journal Article?
By 3.13.15
As more news consumers have started to migrate online instead of getting their news in dead-tree form, this has caused problems for the entire business model of publishing. It raises an interesting question, though: what if there were a news equivalent of buying the one song you like from a new album for 99¢ or less? That option may be coming soon to our national newspapers like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. [More]
Newspaper Tries To Cancel Blizzard With Fun Headline Graphic, Just Confuses Subscribers
By 2.16.15
On the one hand, is it fun to try to spice up the front page of a newspaper? I’ll leave that to the design experts, but sure, whatever floats your boat. However on the other hand, using a big red CANCELLED graphic over a headline about a blizzard is awfully confusing. Just ask the readers of the Sun Journal in Lewiston, ME. [More]
Amazon UK Finds Use For Newspaper Distributors: Delivering Packages
By 10.15.14
Who visits every neighborhood on a daily basis? There’s the postal service, of course, but another group of drivers or distributors on foot come by early in the morning, making their deliveries while most people sleep. Most cities still have a daily newspaper, so why not take advantage of that to bring online orders to residential neighborhoods? That’s what Amazon wants to do in the United Kingdom. [More]
Newspapers Warning About “Readers Payment Service” Subscription Scam
By 10.9.14
All around the country, people are receiving subscription renewal notices from a company called Readers Payment Services (or various other names) for any one of dozens of newspapers. The invoices, which ask for your credit card and personal information, may look legitimate, but the newspapers are warning their subscribers to not fall for this scam. [More]
Jeff Bezos Buys Washington Post For $250 Million, Gets A Few Add-On Items
By 8.5.13
Newspapers are dirt cheap these days. If you’ve always dreamed of owning one, it’s time to scoop one up. The headline took a lot of people by surprise: Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, bought the Washington Post. What, like he downloaded it on his Kindle? No, he bought the entire paper from the Washington Post Company for $250 million in cash. [More]
Newspaper Carrier: I Work Hard To Deliver Your Grandma's Paper, And I Exist
By 9.17.12
For our younger readers who aren’t familiar, a newspaper is sort of like Google News, but all printed on a piece of paper, and it doesn’t update automatically. Newspapers don’t automatically appear on your doorstep, though. It might seem like magic, but there’s a real person who bundles up those papers and drives around in all kinds of weather to get them on your doorstep before you wake up. Reader Auron, a newspaper carrier, responded to our call for readers to tell us what they wish the general public knew about their jobs. [More]
The Denver Post Really Doesn’t Want To Entice Long-Term Subscribers
By 6.18.12
The amount of money newspapers and magazines charge to advertisers is closely tied to their reader base. That’s why print media will often give discounts to people willing to subscribe for longer periods of time. But not the Denver Post, which wants you to pay significantly more per week if you go with the lengthier subscription. [More]
Gannett To Put 80 Of Its Newspapers Behind Pay Walls
By 2.23.12
Led by the likes of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, the rest of the newspaper industry is gradually attempting an experiment to charge readers for stuff it’s always given away for free. Newspaper giant Gannett revealed that it’s sticking 80 of its community newspapers’ websites behind pay walls. USA Today web content will remain free for now. [More]
23 More Newspapers Hoist Up Paywalls
By 8.16.11
In a paradigm shift that will either help make newspapers more profitable or prove their dwindling relevance, 23 newspapers owned by MediaNews Group followed the lead of The Wall Street Journal and New York Times by shaking down would-be online freeloaders for a monthly fee. The program includes MediaNews’s smaller papers, including the Daily Democrat (Woodland, Calif.), Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg, Mass.) and Daily Times (Farmington, NM). [More]
Guy Files Class Action Against Hilton For Charging Him 75 Cents For Newspaper He Didn't Ask For
By 8.1.11
A man has decided to turn a minor annoyance, getting a newspaper at your hotel room door and getting charged for it, into a class action lawsuit. [More]
Philly Newspapers Hope Cheap Tablets Will Help Sell Digital Subscriptions
By 7.12.11
The Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer plan to start offering discounted tablet computers to customers, beginning in late August. The Android-based tablets will come with apps that let customers read the digital editions of the papers, and the price will include a one-to-two-year subscription to the paid digital offerings. [More]
Newspaper Chain Avoids Bankruptcy By Selling Junk Bonds
By 4.13.11
Newspaper executives are forced to come up with increasingly clever maneuvers to stave off bankruptcy. Lee Enterprises, which owns the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, my daytime employer, the Arizona Daily Star, and several small-town papers will reportedly resort to selling off its debt as junk bonds in order to prevent vulture investors from swooping in and picking at its carcass. [More]
New York Times Will Make Another Go At Pay Wall Before Month's End
By 3.18.11
After abandoning an earlier attempt at a pay wall in 2007, The New York Times will make another go of it March 28, introducing a metered system that will give readers access to material before charging them when they keep reading stories. [More]
The Daily: Will Murdoch's Fancy New iPad Newspaper Save Publishing?
By 2.2.11
Probably not. But it does have lots of widgets and video modules. [More]
Dallas Morning News Trying To Get Freeloading Readers To Pay Up
By 1.5.11
Pay walls haven’t seen much success in the world of traditional media, but the Dallas Morning News is trying its hand at the brick and mortar. The newspaper will allow its print subscribers to view all content online, and will partition off some stories from readers without a $34 print or $17 monthly digital subscription. Digital-only subscriptions will allow readers to view content through browsers or via iPod or iPhone apps. [More]
