Martin Nisenholtz
This chief of New York Times Digital once famously planned to spin off the online division and take it public. That didn't happen. But now that his operation is turning a tidy profit, Martin Nisenholtz is back to making declarations. In a recent keynote speech he said online journalism "needs a Pong" - a transformative application - and that blogs aren't it. Is he dismissing a threat to big media hegemony, or is he onto something? Wired inquired.
Wired: Are you saying that blogs are populated by rank amateurs?
Nisenholtz: No, no, not at all. I'm saying that the programmers who created Pong created a just-good-enough experience so that suddenly they could make a living as videogame designers, an occupation that obviously hadn't existed before. I meant it as a compliment - videogames are bigger than movies now. But you couldn't expect an amateur to do what EA does.
But you compared blogs to CB and ham radio.
I'm just saying that even if they don't develop into a virtuous cycle that enables a professional class to work in blogs, they can live on in a vibrant, amateur context. But look - for Wired magazine to exist, you've got to get paid.
I wouldn't need to work for Wired if I decided to live off AdSense clickthroughs on my own blog.
I haven't seen anything that could create the scale necessary to engender a professional blogging class in any meaningful way.
NYT Digital just announced a $20 million profit. AdSense seems to work for you.
We're still mainly in the business of aggregating and sorting content that was created for other purposes. Plus, most of our advertisers don't live and die by the clickthrough. Our brand advertising business has been growing 30 to 40 percent for the past two years. There's a lot of room for innovation in brand awareness advertising.
An online brand advertising boom. Sounds hauntingly familiar - so it's back to full steam ahead on that IPO?
No. [Laughs.] I don't think we have any plans to do that.
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