IFRA

The New York Times Reader has caused quite a stir with its slick and sophisticated delivery of content and adverts and is one of the more convincing arguments to be the face of the newspaper to come when it comes to electronic delivery. If you have not tried it, sign up for the 30 day trial and see for yourself at http://firstlook.nytimes.com. Robert Z. Samuels is responsible for all of The New York Times’s mobile products, which include Mobile Web, SMS, Mobile phone client applications, e-readers/e-ink, and Times Reader.

IFRA: Unlike many smaller players the NYT has the resources to deliver on many if not all of the new platforms competing for content – is there a simple way to do that or have you been forced to reinvent the wheel with every new e-reader or mobile phone?

Samuels: Even though we do have a lot of resources available to us we look to leverage existing technologies and tools as much as possible, working with those companies and platforms that demonstrate a solid road map and a large user base so we can try to reach multiple platforms without having to create multiple versions.

In developing Times Reader on a Microsoft Platform, we hope to be able leverage a lot of what’s been built and port it to e-Ink, e-Readers, and possible mobile phones.

IFRA: The NYT appears on a variety of platforms including Amazon's Kindle but isn't the mobile phone a more pressing priority for newspapers?

Samuels: Certainly, mobile web browsing is growing quickly. Our mobile web site went from 500,000 page views from January 2007 to 9.8 million by December of that year; this rapid growth is continuing in 08.

I would attribute the growth to a number of factors including our relationships with device manufacturers and carriers, plus the system growth of the mobile web itself from better devices, data plans, mobile content, and carrier/OEM promotion.

IFRA: Has the iPhone been part of that?

Samuels: There was a lot of advertising early on about viewing the NYT website on the iPhone and people would use it to see the standard site but many then chose to go to the mobile NYT which provides all the articles, the full text, the images and applications like "most e-mailed" lists, movie show times, real estate listings, My Alerts, weather, & stocks.

The mobile version loads much more quickly than the regular site and will be tailored more for the iPhone.

IFRA: So does that mean newspapers will be obliged to develop multiple versions of their electronic products?

Samuels: Not really. You might need a regular website and a mobile version which could display different formats for Blackberries, Treos and iPhones. You don't have to create a different website for every category or class of device.

There are many ways a publisher can manifest mobile sites – the development team can generate an XML site and provide different interfaces based on platform detection or they can choose to outsource if it's not a skill set they have in house.

IFRA: Coming back to the NYT Reader it stands out not just for the smooth transitions from page to page but for the lack of intrusive pop up/pop under or interstitial adverts – is that deliberate?

Samuels: One of the things about the reader is that no content is hidden by vertical or horizontal scrolling and likewise no ads are hidden so there's no need for pop ups or overlays and we worked with our advertisers to come up with non-intrusive adverts that are part of that premium reading experience.

IFRA: What else have you been able to experiment with in the reader that differs from a typical web experience?

Samuels: One of the features we provided are unique to the reader including an article index that lets you see what's been read or not.

We're proud of the great portable / non-connected experience and see ourselves as generally raising the bar in terms of the user interface.

Really we're trying to create something much closer to the paper experience so they can almost "turn the page."

We're working to market this to our home delivery subscribers who get it free and then have the choice between Times Reader and mobile web with this ubiquity it means whether they're reading on a laptop at 50,000 feet or on a BlackBerry by the side of the pool they have a robust experience.

IFRA: Any user feedback that's surprised you?

Samuels: Not necessarily surprising but one area we've had an unexpected degree of success is with the large number of users who are sight impaired.

The ability to easily resize the font in Times Reader has generated a lot of positive feedback. The mobile web site has recevieved similar feedback for facilitating having the Times read to them by screen reading software (JAWS.)

IFRA: What else has proved popular in the Reader?

Samuels: The premium crosswords product, included free with Times Reader, definitely has – it gives access to a thousand plus crosswords; we synch them every day while allowing users to play their crosswords locally on the device so it doesn't matter if you're travelling.

Then there's the News and Pictures application which creates a slideshow of high-res images synched to the Times Reader.

There are hundreds of pictures a day, users can change the display speed and click on any picture as it comes up to read the article, it acts both as a visual synopsis of the news and another point of entry into it.

Plus there's our "most e-mailed" section – a lot of users like that because of the strong social element to it – the water cooler factor – and that was added based on user feedback.

IFRA: And the next step? What would you look to next to bring a further element to the reader approach?

Samuels: The next step will be to include a bit more real time content, including widgets to deliver weather or stock market information, including more user defined/personalised content

Interview conducted by IFRA Correspondent Steve Shipside.