NYTimes.com New Design: Cancel Print Sub, Really

So says Jack Shafer, Slate’s editor at large, about the radical redesign of NYTimes.com. I would tend to agree with him..the site’s new design is growing on me, and has that “newspapery” look and quality to it.

Back to Shafer: “I’m canceling because the redesign of your Web site, which you unveiled yesterday, bests the print edition by such a margin I’ve decided to pocket the annual $621.40 I currently spend on home delivery.” He also has some minor quibbles..

On a rather more hyperbolic note, Jim Cramer says in NYMag (funnily enough, NYMag.com also redesigned its site and looks quiet a bit like, well, NYTimes.com), says that NYT should ditch the paper edition completely and move online. “It should abandon newsprint and force everyone to the Web. It should make a stand against Google, using its About.com division–something with real growth, and which is actually working out despite the $410 million in debt taken down to buy the thing–to lead the way. Maybe it should even take the revolutionary step of blocking Google from accessing its content, something no one else is willing to do.”

Some more creative suggestions later in the story as well…like selling 49 percent of the company “for several billion dollars to help the company make the transition to being the first digital enterprise that used to be all-print. Then it would be positioned to make itself the ultimate news-and-information portal, challenging Google at its own game.”

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