To beat or not to beat the NY Times

In March 2011, the The NY Times became one of the world’s first newspapers to start charging readers for a digital subscription. As a loyal Times reader, the idea of paying two hundred bucks a year for what was once (isn’t it supposed to be?) free, at the time seemed a little over the top. But I needed to stay in touch. I no longer lived in NYC and more importantly, my beloved Knicks were (and remain) in the midst of their latest overhaul. I still can’t bring myself to register for the NY Post or Daily News.

The original motive behind this post was to share with you how I learned to beat the Time’s digital subscription costs, legally. But after reading their recently released financial report, I’m not so sure I should.

We all know how hard newspapers have been hit by the world’s move online. I’m now having the strange feeling that like an endangered species, we should be helping these guys out, instead.

I’m not considering creating a ”Save the Times” charity. But I’m wondering if my actions, and those of anyone like me who beats the system, will end up being the straw that eventually breaks the camel’s back. I’d hate to see the Times and all their great writers end up at Fox News.



As we all know print newspapers are getting killed by the seismic shift to online reading. The global economy hasn’t helped either by killing ad spend and CPC, and of course, the growth in sharing articles via social networks just compounds the pain. This last point I’ll get to later.

Should we feel bad for the Times?
In case you did not know it, NYTimes.com is the world’s #1 news site, getting over 45 million unique visitors each month and reaching 1 in 6 Internet users.

That’s good news, because their print business has been dying over the past five years. They are still the third-largest U.S. newspaper on weekdays. The Wall Street Journal is No. 1 with an average weekday circulation of 2.1 million and in second place, USA Today, with 1.8 million followers. But subscriptions like ad revenues are shrinking and not nearly enough to foot the Time’s big-time operating costs.

According to its financial statement released in February, the Times’ digital subscription base is growing. The company has been restructuring and refocusing their business model to take advantage of the shift to digital. Times’ Chairman and CEO, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., in the report said, “In 2011 we made significant strides in our strategy to transform and rebalance our company. Our fourth-quarter results demonstrate the continued focus on building The Time’s digital subscription base and developing a new robust consumer revenue stream, while maintaining its significant digital advertising business.”

OK, so they’re counting on digital subscribers to save the day – even more guilt.

At least they are heading in the right direction. Paid digital subscribers for the Times and Herald Tribune are 390,000, an increase of approximately 20% since the end of the third quarter 2011. Even better, ad revenues increased on the year by 10 % despite falling cost-per-click prices.

Will this be enough to offset (no pun intended) the fall in its print business? We’ll have to wait and see. The rest of the news world is anxiously watching too, as the Times' digital subscription model is seen as a possible solution to their own revenue shortfalls.

Businessinsider.com believes the Time’s digital business will eventually support a newsroom of about one-third to one-half the size of the paper's current one. Could you imagine working at the Times now? Knowing you or the guy next to you will soon get the ax.

Who wants to cast the first stone?
As I mentioned, the purpose of this post was to share how I legally beat the Time’s subscription price.

Before I say how, let me state that I actually used to pay for my subscription - at least for a while. I didn’t realize that when my credit card was renewed, it null and voided the one I had registered with the Times. So in actuality, my subscription was cancelled unintentionally - beyond my control.

For the thirty odd years that I’ve been reading the NY Times, I have basically followed the same ritual almost every day. Read the sports pages, check the Knick articles, read a couple of favorite columnists, any interesting articles that stand out and that’s it.

Is that worth two hundred bucks per year? I’m still deciding.

In the meantime, here’s my secret, which is probably not a secret as there’s most likely a million other people (literally) doing the same thing.

I just follow my favorite journalists and columnists on Twitter. They now send the articles to me. If it sounds interesting, I can click their link. It’s faster, more effective and… it’s FREE! Goodbye subscription price. No more of the amazingly annoying pop banner that tells you that you have used up your 20/month free allotment of Time’s articles. BTW, does that 20/month allotment include when you click on a section or return clicks?

These days everybody seems starved for time. Is my Twitter trick the future model? Pre-choose what interests you and have it delivered. Google seems to be considering it. Tell us what you want… never mind, we know what you want; we will recommend what we think is relevant to you. You can then decide if you want to read it.



It all seems fine and dandy and a great time saver but you know what? Nearly every time I follow a tweet to a Times’ article, I stumble upon another interesting piece. I fear that with all the great tools created to bring and follow what we like to our doorstep: we are losing the joy of discovery.

The other day on the radio in the car, I heard an amazing song from an artist I never heard of. The chance of that happening online gets smaller every day.

Is the thrill of the unexpected worth two hundred dollars a year to you?

About Andrew Singer
I provide communications and inbound marketing services to a wide variety of international companies, ranging from hi-tech firms like Siemens and TrackMan to more mainstream clients like Carlsberg, Coloplast, Novo Nordisk and the World Youth and Student Travel Conference. Find examples of my work on my website www.andrewsinger.dk.

Women in the Workplace

Forbes Insight has ranked Denmark #5 in the world in terms of having women in the workplace in its study released yesterday, February 6.

Denmark’s strong global rank can be attributed to the high percentage of women in the Danish workforce.

As an American living and working in Denmark, the results come as no surprise. The study found that the percentage of females working in Denmark is upwards of 75%: Putting it right behind #1 Iceland at 78%.

Denmark’s gender diversity and opportunities for women makes the country a very attractive workplace. And according to the study, a prerequisite for any country’s continued economic growth.

Studies show that greater economic equality between men and women result in reduced poverty rates, a boost GDP and better governance.

Forbes’ new study suggests that in order to improve female participation rates, governments should adopt a number of proven approaches such as flex-time initiatives, free or subsidized childcare, and tax breaks for married couples when both partners work. Many initiatives already found in Denmark.

Likewise, given Denmark as well as the Nordic region’s strong social support network, it is little wonder that Norway ranked as the most gender diverse economy, followed by Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Denmark. The lowest-ranked countries for gender diversity are incidentally, Pakistan, the UAE and Turkey.

Denmark’s lack of women on the board

While Denmark ranked #2 in having women in the workplace, in terms of having female board members, Denmark dropped to a surprising 12th place.

I remember a similar story about the lack of Danish female board members in the news some months back; the Forbes’ study confirms this.

Importantly, the trend is one that Denmark should quickly look to reverse according to the report.

Studies have demonstrated a positive correlation between women in leadership positions and a company’s financial performance. For example, in the Forbes 2010 “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” issue, a study of the stock performance of the 26 publicly traded companies run by women on the list discovered that, as a group, they outperformed the market. On average, the 26 women-led companies beat the market by 28% and their respective industries by 15%.

For a nation to be competitive on the global stage, it must make use of its female talent pool.

The proportion of women who have climbed the corporate ladder and made it to board-of-director status varies greatly among countries. The nations with the highest percentage of female board members are as mentioned, Norway (36%), the Philippines (23%), Sweden (23%), Latvia (22%) and Slovakia (22%).

The countries with the lowest proportion of women on boards are Portugal (0.4%), Japan (0.9%), the UAE (0.9%), Korea (1%) and Chile (2.4%).

It is interesting to see such an advanced economy as Japan to appear so far down on the rankings. Its insular approach to boardroom diversity; the majority of boards are filled by Japanese men, with few women or non-Japanese, once considered its strength, may eventually be its downfall.

On the other hand, Norway’s leading position can be attributed to its being the first country to mandate a gender quota system for board participation in publicly listed companies.

What it means to your marketing

The study is definitely worth a read and consideration if you are in the marketing business.

With so many Danish women on the job, we should consider how we position our products, brands and services. The days of the Mr. Clean making a housewife’s day easier are long gone, at least in Denmark.

Are Danish advertising and marketing agencies acknowledging gender equality?

Please feel free to comment (and in Danish)




For the complete Forbes report

Should you be taking Google+ more seriously?

As we all look to improve our Google search ranking and communication channels, are we, and the companies that we advise, taking Google+ seriously enough?

Statistically, it seems the world is warming up to Google+. Google CEO, Larry Page in his recent Google state of the union address and sounding very much like a seasoned politician fiddling with an unemployment statistic said, “+users are very engaged with our products -- over 60% of them (90 million) engage daily, and over 80% weekly.”

When you read between the lines, did he actually mean Google+ users were interacting with their + pages or did he mean that they were using some type of Google product, i.e. searches, calendar, translator… May be it doesn’t matter.

If you compare those +’s numbers with Facebook, where at least half of its 800 million plus users use it every day, it may not sound so impressive. I reiterate; should we care?

Having an active presence on Google+ may not necessarily be about building your following, brand, interacting with your customers, or whatever, like on Facebook - although the brands with successful Google + pages will most likely disagree. And I believe rightly so as I’ve noticed that the conversations on

Google + are much more intense than they are on FB.

The main reason to get on Google+ as fast as possible is SEO.



You’re either with me or against me

Does anyone have the sneaking suspicion that Google is rigging the books in terms of rewarding companies with Google+ pages with better Google search results.

Many SEO experts can document how Google+ pages influence search results and can back it up with hard data. See John Lincoln’s article, The Many Ways Google +1s Influence Search Engine Optimization. But these stories mainly talk about how +s affect your search results.

My question is, is Google secretly thinking: if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Help us build Google+ and destroy Facebook and we’ll reward you with better rankings when customers search for you. Have I seen too many Michael Moore movies?

In Facebook’s SEC filing last week, they stated that one of the “risk factors” that could “materially and adversely affect” the company is, “The competition from Google, Microsoft and Twitter could heat up — not to mention other social networks around the world.”

Is this an understatement?

What’s your take on Google+ and its relevance?

Are you active on it?

In Erin Everhart’s recent Mashable post, How Google’s Social Search Shift Will Impact Your Brand’s 
SEO, she explains the recent changes in Google’s search parameters and why we need to pay attention to what and how we say it on Google+. Erin in fact, says that we should be thinking SEO our Google+ posts.

As a <H1> communications and inbound marketing professional (), I believe Google+ should be jumped on and shown the love.

I think as companies and brands, we need to view Google+ as an open blog - an ongoing conversation with any and everyone. Create content, make it relevant and make it different then Facebook. Check out NASA’s Google+ page. And while you’re at it, get the benefits of much improved search results.

I’m still getting my feet wet on Google+ as you can see by my lack of following anyone. If you’re not on Google+ yet, why not use this story as an opportunity to get started and experiment.

Feel free to add my page to your circles and I’ll add you back. Document and check your search results after.

Similarly, if you or your company already has a presence, I’d appreciate hearing how it’s working out for you.