I don't know if the relaunch will work or not because I don't know if the web is fundamentally changing what (topic, length) we want to read. I do know they're sitting on a trove of evergreen content. A few years ago I rented a cabin in the woods for a month - no internet. There was a stack of 5 year old New Yorkers and I read all of them. I was blown away by the quality and timelessness of the writing. I had never paid much attention to it before, but I became a subscriber after that.
I read an article about the trapped Chilean miners a week or two ago, and it occurred to me while reading it that it would have made no difference at all if it were written decades ago about an event I had never heard of; I still would have been engaged and deeply enjoyed its storytelling. I wish other publications would figure out a way to be more like the New Yorker, rather than the other way around.
I recently reluctantly (so much out there for free) subscribed to the New Yorker, as a way of disconnecting myself. The first story I opened up to was the Chilean miners, I was in love.
I wish we were more willing to pay, but it just seems like the internet has created this expectation of free and plentiful, hope it doesn't go down that road.
I like the length of the New Yorker and the accuracy. I often find myself reading a topical article on the internet -- example: the plane that was just shot down-- and I go from one internet post to the next. The same three or four facts and maybe some sketchy analysis, but really everybody rushes to post without doing much research. If there is an article about it in the New Yorker I think I would learn a lot more.
I tried out a subscription recently (before today's changeover), and sent them an email with my issues. Some have been fixed, but they still have a ways to go:
- The PDF archives. This was a disaster. Very glad that they fixed this.
- Integrated account system. Not fixed. There are separate logins for customer care, the regular web site, and the subscription management. This needs to be integrated.
- Issues with the login system generally. It sometimes takes a half dozen attempts to recognize that I have an account (password is saved.) Puzzling, and frustrating, especially when trying to check on a subscription. Not fixed.
- Painfully slow subscription turn-up time. My confirmation email took nearly a half hour to arrive. Unsure if this is fixed.
- Search. Much better UX now, though many of the results are 404s. I assume they are still working on this, but as it stands, not usable.
- Overall look and feel. Improved. Happy with this.
Hopefully they fix the above over the next few months. The content is excellent, but the rest needs work still.
Can't help but wonder about the paywall-everything approach after seeing several nice articles of theirs on HN today.
Fairly hilarious ageism-in-editing:
Due to a transcription error, an earlier version of this article misquoted Nicholas Thompson talking about Roger Angell. The phrase Thompson used was that he "writes wonderfully about what it means to blog." Originally we had it as "might wonder about what it means to blog."
I'm actually curious as to how many HN users find The New Yorker useful or insightful. It's always struck me as rather middlebrow and perhaps couched in the would-be-elitism of the east coast.
Most of my reading and thinking since childhood has been around technology. The New Yorker is, for me, a gentle tour around "the arts" as I have no education in that area (hence 'highbrow' art/literary writing goes right over my head).
It's like a conversation with an older, smarter, slightly pretentious friend who went off to theater school while you stayed up writing code all night.
The web is full of snack-size bites of information, but lacks context. The New Yorker (and The Economist) are great for providing deeper insight and creating links between stories, or leading you to thoughts that you wouldn't normally have clicking hundreds of links on Google News, HNN, HuffPo, TechCrunch etc.
It's good to read as much as you can, especially things that are outside your normal horizons.
Middlebrow is precisely what it aspires to be. It's not a scholarly (highbrow) publication. It's not USA Today (lowbrow). It executes specific conventions capably and asks only that inexpert readers concentrate and enjoy.
Finally. Until now, AFAIK there was no way to get access to some newly published articles digitally without (a) going through their terrible iOS app or (b) going through this weird browser based magazine simulator. Both required a subscription. Neither allowed you to put text into a read-it-later application, and until recently the font size on the iOS app was unreadably small and not resizable.
The New Yorker has such great content – I'm excited they are adopting a less user-hostile interface for accessing it.
Online editor Nicholas Thompson, who is spearheading today’s relaunch, put the
challenge succinctly:
“What we’re trying to do,” he said, “is to make a website that is to the
Internet what the magazine is to all other magazines.”
And then there's this gem;
While The New Yorker originally provided magazine writers— who sign a contract
each year promising a salary in exchange for the delivery of a certain word
count—no extra compensation for blogging, doing it instead as a sort of favor
to previous web editors like Avi Zenilman or to Remnick, it has recently paid
about $250 per post, sources told Capital.
It seems like writers of this caliber should be able to maximize their earnings by monetizing their own content directly. But then you realize, wow, monetizing distribution, especially at a micro-scale, is a really hard, and really interesting unsolved problem.
Now, if they stopped using that crappy app that can't even do a background download and come up with a better app, that would make the redesign more complete.
They'd probably be better off really developing out their mobile web presence - after all, their articles are almost always just text. Very little native multimedia handling required.
True that background downloads are a pain, though occasionally they mysteriously work when a new New Yorker appears on Monday morning. But apart from that annoyance, I am generally pretty happy with the New Yorker app. Quickly browsing through all the cartoons is nice. I heard once that it was one of the few success stories in online journalism (i.e., users are actually paying for news content). Is this still true?
Last I knew, iOS Newsstand apps were allowed to do a special push to the app in the background—but only as often as the physical issue was released. So, it might be that they get to do a background push once a week, and aside from that, all downloads have to be started while the app is open.
Can't see the images on slideshow pages because I block analytics providers. Step backwards, New Yorker, and this is coming from a non-American who semi-frequently buys your print issues. I used to love your little monocle man!
