NY Times Reaps Rewards of Free Content

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By: John Cantwell

TechCrunch reported today that traffic on the New York Times‘ website jumped by 64% (or 7.5 million readers) from the end of August through the end of October. Not surprisingly, this spike came right on the heels of the Times canceling Times Select, their subscription-based service.

If it seems like DigitalBlab has something of a crush on the Times, that’s not true - we like them as friends, and that’s it. But we keep writing about the Times because they get it - they understand that users (and the data/extra content they generate) can be far more valuable than content by itself.

More and more, companies are opening up their content archives in order to attract new users. This morning iMeem announced that Universal agreed to provide its songs for free on the social media network, joining music behemoths Sony BMG, EMI and Warner, who already had agreements with iMeem. Announcements like this mark a sea change for the major labels, who are slowly coming around to the idea of sharing more of their content, even as they continue to sue their own customers.

What’s the PR spin for this? It’s simple really - give people what you’ve got. The Web 2.0 marketplace thrives on openness and sharability. Hindering either of these elements immediately (and sometimes fatally) diminishes your company’s footprint in the Web 2.0 marketplace.