The effort to modernize our service journalism began with Cooking a year ago.
The newspaper has always provided a significant service role - helping readers decide what show to see, what book to read and what apartment to buy - and we believe we can add even more value on mobile. But individual book reviews do not include any links to buy.) (The Times currently includes multiple buying options, including Amazon, on its book bestsellers list, with affiliate links. The Washington Post got some pushback at one point for “ inadvertently” inserting an Amazon “Buy Now” button into the body of one of its stories, but it now includes Amazon affiliate links in book reviews without much criticism. But note that the Times version of those recommendations lacks the affiliate links that The Wirecutter’s has.)ĭigital publishers from Vox Media to Business Insider to BuzzFeed have been all over e-commerce (and Gawker Media - R.I.P. (Here’s one on choosing the right wireless router, which also appeared in the Times in print and was the most-emailed Times story that day. The Wirecutter has partnered with the Times ( as well as with other publishers) on product recommendations in the past. But the real reason we’re joining up is so that we can do what we do better than we ever have before, with support from the world’s greatest home to journalism.” Ben French, vice president of NYT Beta, will serve as interim general manager and will work to integrate The Wirecutter and The Sweethome into The Times Company.Ī brief statement from Lam on The Wirecutter’s site promises they’ll “continue to work hard to help you find great things to buy quickly and easily.
Lam will stay on in an advisory role, while Jacqui Cheng, editor-in-chief, and Christopher Mascari, product director, will remain in those roles. Their service-focused guides align with our commitment to creating products that are an indispensable part of our readers’s lives,” Thompson added.įollowing the acquisition, Mr. The practical approach that The Wirecutter and The Sweethome take to product recommendations embodies the same standards and values that are the pillars of our own newsroom. “The New York Times is the definitive source for news, information and entertainment and now we’re working on becoming an authoritative destination for service journalism, with verticals like Cooking, Watching and Well. It’s an impressively run business with a very attractive revenue model and its success is built on the foundation of great, rigorously reported service journalism,” said Mark Thompson, president and CEO of The New York Times Company. “We’re very excited about this acquisition on two fronts. “It’s not, ‘This is what we believe and this is what we’re going to write about and this is how we’re going to help people.’” “A lot of these new companies, the mission is business: ‘We want to get as many eyeballs as possible,’” Lam had told Recode’s Peter Kafka in a podcast episode this past June. According to Lam, The Wirecutter drove $150 million in e-commerce transactions in 2015.
The model was working: The site only posts a few dozen articles a month, according to a Bloomberg profile earlier this year, and is profitable. Its editorial mandate is meticulous reviewing, offering readers a small selection of only what its staffers deem to be the best stuff, and the site generates e-commerce revenue through affiliate links, getting a cut of the purchase price. The Wirecutter was founded in 2011 by Brian Lam, an editor of the then–Gawker Media site Gizmodo, and has never taken venture funding. July 16, 2015The New York Times will pay more than $30 million to buy the much-loved gadget and technology review site The Wirecutter, Recode reported on Monday (The Times is also getting The Wirecutter’s sibling site focused more on home appliances and goods, The Sweethome).
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