I think the Times is missing out on a way to increase their reach. If they allowed their sports commentary and blogs to be separated from the general news, they'd have a contributing revenue center from UW grads (both me and my 95-year old Dad) and Mariners fans who don't care about traffic in Bothell or I-90 repairs (i.e., live in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, or elsewhere farther away) and Seahawk fans also not local. I'd gladly pay $1.49 a MONTH for that (say $15/year in advance), but not $2.99 per WEEK when the main content is not of especial interest. When I lived in Silverdale, I read the Times regularly. Now I just want Baker, Stone, Brewer, and news and commentary on UW sports. Seems like they could do a deal with the UW alumni assoc. to make the subset of the site available to us'n's living more than 250 or so miles down the yellow brick road.
Since sports (because of travel) is usually the highest cost section on the paper, I think the Times is really shooting themselves in the foot not making this expensive content available separately.
If you're reading, Geoff or Larry - get the UW community, Seahawks fans, and Mariners fans a chance to continue enjoying you and your colleagues work!
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Hm. The Bakery is going to start charging, you say? OH NOOoooooo... makes sense, though.
Conversation in the Shout Box is running like so:
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Speaking of SSI not having a subscription (which I am thankful for!), but... How does Klat make money? I don't see any ads or anything...10 min 21 sec ago
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OBF: Wow, can Noesi just go away now... And Ruffin? What happened to him?? He was supposed to be the jewel of the Fister trade not Wells... oh well.14 min 45 sec ago
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DaddyO: Yes, the TImes decision will have interesting repercussions, Griz. Re: the conduct, that's for sure. I completely understand the conundrum for news/commentary businesses. But there's a whole lot of people who are being squeezed from so many directions, a lot of average guys who will simply have to say, "Sorry, it's only a buck (FOR NOW!), but I can't justify it when I can get info from so many places for free. If I have to forgo Baker's blog, that's a shame, but I plan on doing just that. Let me take a moment to thank Jeff for his move to a non-subscription format some time ago. We have no inherent right to this or any other website, which costs the proprietor time and infrastructure, not to mention the value of the content.38 min 21 sec ago
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malcontent: Perhaps only Hector Noesi can look both like a batting practice pitcher and unhittable in a single inning.1 hour 30 min ago
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 MtGrizzly: With the Seattle Times retreating behind the pay wall, there are going to be a lot of Baker-Blog commenters looking for a new home. It's going to be an interesting time in the old M's blogosphere. There is a lot of conduct on the Times blogs that won't be tolerated anywhere |
You can follow the Klat links, bottom of page, to answer the questions about profit models. The good folks upstairs like to be discreet, because of Google's often asinine rules about page rank, homegrown sites, etc etc. Read between da lines :- ) but Dr D could cause difficulties for folks, if he represented this as any kind of manufactured / insincere website.
Which it isn't.
Long story short, as best as Dr D understands the story .. a big time Microsoft power broker developed an interest in pushing the envelope as to the way that social media works. Interaction ACROSS WEBSITES is a particular area of interest. Klat has a good amount of proprietary technology ... Dr D is not clear as to whether it's headed toward a "next Facebook" payoff, or simply making the world a better place, or what.
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Four-five years back, we responded to a Craigslist and spent time writing in about 15-20 different genres ... dance, dentistry, astronomy etc. It took Grant about one month to say, ummmmm, hey, man. Do sports and get a community going. LOL! Okay wit' me.... all modesty aside, for Grant to perceive the possibilities so quickly was pretty remarkable, I think.
The Klat folks been berry, berrrrry good to Dr D, both professionally and in face-to-face meets. It's a dream situation for me, at least ... so far we'd venture to say that they seem to feel at least somewhat similarly. :- )
In large part this is because youse guys are simply a MODEL of intelligent, adult social media application. When they want to talk to a client or peer group and point at something cool, say "look at the possibilities here," SSI and MarinerStalk are quite literally "models" of the social-media platforms they're developing. As it pertains to the tech platform and the community members using it.
True, the traffic hosting runs into hiccups here and there. That will happen when you've scaled up to 1500 sites as quickly as they've done. Hey, if the only subscription cost you have is to hit an upload issue now and then, it's cheap at twice the price :- )
Therefore, a fresh influx of Times denizens would be managed carefully. We often hear that the posters here are ... well, not only the best in baseball, but the best on the internet, any genre. So 900 trolls aren't going to be allowed to shout down the valued posters here who, in essence, co-author the site.
My warmest appreciation goes to you community members, who exchange ideas in such a classy and stimulating manner.
Best,
Jeff
Comments
I don't even like posting on here because the regulars are on another level. Love it.
which seems rare to me. No reason to feel intimidated at any opportunity to learn. Nobody started out with any large amount of knowledge, we all learn it over time particularly by asking questions. I am personally behind in understanding a lot of scouting analysis on the site and tend to ask questions about that here to understand it better. It's often explained well enough that I can too.
BOOM goes the dynamite. Their large community of readers will be a ghost of what it was pre-wall. $2.99 a week? I don't think so.
Baker will be known on the future as "that baseball guy on KJR with Mitch who writes for some blog or something." I'll just listen to the various sportsradio pod casts anytime I want my fix of Baker.
The blog will fade from our collective memories, just like the P-I has.
He encourages open discussion In a way you don't find on the internet. Started reading his stuff at D-O-V years ago and really appreciate him keeping at it.
It's rare when you find a place that is so welcoming without running into scores of rabid teenagers proving the rapid deterioration of America's educational system with seemingly every post. Thanks, Doc =)
Geoff Baker going from 8,000 viewers on Geoff Baker Live! to an afterthought?! Well, he could always post here :- )
Good to meetcha ZZ. I heard it, I heard it, I heard it on the SSI...
RE Bat571's comment, how many of you value the Times' non-sports news more than its sports coverage? If you don't think the Times' sports beat reporters bring special value, you can always go to the AP or other local media to find out what the M's are doing, but I think the Times covers news stories others don't, and does some investigative work too.
...I refuse to pay for a package that includes stuff I don't need in the price unless I have no other choice. I don't even have cable anymore because 95% of it is garbage and I can get most of what i was watching anyway via cheaper web streaming applications.
Moving behind the paywall is going to destroy the Times' sports coverage because no one is going to buy it.
But, Ghost, would you pay for a sports blogs and commentary only package from the Times if:
1) it was available on a reasonable monthly basis, or at a more reasonable annual one, to readers outside Washington;
2) you knew the ads, if any, would be UWAA, USAA, USO, and other orgs interested in Seattle/UW sports fans living outside Washington (which would include military on deployment and retired military who became fans while at Ft. Lewis or Bangor/Kitsap), or from Nordstroms, Eddie Bauer, REI, or other businesses with a national reach;
and
3) you could log in and download the days package for later, off-line viewing?
That's what I'd like to see - even a pay Android/iTunes app like MLB at-bat - there sure are enough football ones - LSU has one, why not UW, with the Mariners/Seahawks coverage as a bonus. But I gotta think the Times is so fixated on their Pulitzers that they don't understand that people outside the Seattle area can take their local newspaper or digital equivalent and nbcnews.com and get everything they NEED. But Baker and Stone are fun, interesting, occasionally challenging and would make some money for the Times as a stand-alone product that is sold as a non-necessity, which means a LOT less than $150/year.
Admiral Rickover used to say that if you wanted to complain about something, you better have an idea of how it could be done better. Even if it was a stupid idea, it would get the discussion going -- well, here's my stupid idea, I guess.
That was kinda my point. I don't want to buy the Times as a whole...but I would definitely pay $5 a month or something like that for a TimesSports ap for my phone plus online access that was downloadable. I mean I'd pay that much to keep getting Baker's streaming media stuff and daily commentary...and I don't even like Baker as much as some folks ehre do. :) He's informative and gives his viewpoint intelligently...and he has more access than most Seattle reporters and that's worth some green to me. I am just not going to pay for the whole paper to get it. :)