NewYorker.com: Beyond the Weekly http://simp.ly/publish/clVLq5

Confab
2:00 pm, May 10

Blake Eskin, Editor, NewYorker.com
#nyrkr #confab

Notes by @brianjameskirk, @technicallym
All notes for the conference available here: http://simp.ly/publish/5GMHGD

2006, NewYorker.com was clunky, built in 2001;

Site was using images for headlines (for custom typography) until November, when the went with TypeKit

WHAT SEPARATES NYRKR FROM WEB
NYRKR: authoritative, focused, quality, polish, weekly, finished, one-way, costs money
WEB: democratic, distracted, quantity, speed, constant, mutable, two-way, free

WHY NEWYORKER.COM?
-Distribution
-Extension
-Make money (subscriptions, advertisements on web, STUFF)

Information must be free is being argued more and more, Eskin says, and it will be easier to build a pay wall, if they want to do that

Putting New Yorker stories on Facebook, you had to "like" to read it, and for David Foster Wallace (Franzen) story, gained 16,000 likes in one week

Metadata is driven by old archiving process that attached an abstract to each article

Listings: 75% of NYRKR readers read listings. Customized a miniCMS that creates listings in the magazine and can easily publish on the web with phone number and location data

BEYOND WEEKLY
NewYorker did a 25 word piece on killing of Osama Bin Laden with WH video embed in Breaking News blog

Instant analysis: By 3:00 a.m., posted Lawrence Wright commentary piece, from David Remnick, Jon Lee Anderson, George Packer, 18 posts by 3:00pm the next day. Content included posts as simple as notes/questions that a reporter might have used on the beat. This was people who wrote books about the issue; and New Yorker readers had the opportunity to hear what these folks were thinking at the moment it happened.

THE LONG VIEW

Beyond the Weekly: NewYorker.com employed strategy to publish Bin Laden analysis, had 18 posts within 18 hours from top experts http://simp.ly/publish/clVLq5 #confab

The dollar-per-word model doesn't work on the web. Sometimes, more words does not equal better readership or engagement.

First huge, viral success, after Abu Ghraib photos, was classic old school story about elevators, included security video of 41-hours spent stuck in an elevator

Podcasts align with NPR audience that is interested in on-demand radio. Projects like this got people interested in the web in a small amount of time.

CoverItLive for conversations with writers. Facebook is a way for readers to talk to one another (inclding civil threads of debate because of identifies)

THE FUTURE OF MAGAZINES
"It's a good thing I only left 5 minutes for this... because I don't really know," Eskin says.

M.NewYorker.com, mobile property
Tablets (iPad)

And apps? Are apps more like the New Yorker or the World Wide Web?

Notes by @brianjameskirk, @technicallym
All notes for the conference available here: http://simp.ly/publish/5GMHGD