Reynolds Journalism InstituteThe New York Times is planning to offer its Book Review as a separate digital e-reader product, disaggregated from the rest of the Times content on the mobile devices, according to
James Dunn, director of marketing for The New York Times.
Dunn alluded to the plan during an afternoon session at the Digital Publishing Alliance (DPA) and E-Reader Symposium at the University of Missouri's Reynolds Journalism Institute.
Following the session, Dunn spoke briefly with Poynter's Bill Mitchell and provided additional details.
Mitchell reports the Times will introduce a separate version of its Book Review for three e-reader platforms, beginning with the Sony e-reader in the next couple of weeks. Versions for Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook will follow. Dunn declined to say what the price will be for the Book Review on these platforms.
The Kindle edition of The New York Times currently costs $13.99 a month and does not include the crossword puzzle.
In addition, Dunn said the focus of the paper's "disaggregation" efforts would be to identify which content categories should not be broken out, but rather should remain as part of the core product. Dunn told Mitchell that examples such as The New York Times Crossword and Book Review were "low hanging fruit" for disaggregation, and said the paper is beginning to think about what else might be spun off as separate products on new platforms.
Earlier in the day,
according to a report in NewsandTech.com, Chuck Rose, USA Today's deputy managing editor of design, shared a demonstration of that paper's forthcoming iPad application saying, "When Steve Jobs made the iPad announcement, [USA Today Publisher David Hunke] said we want to be in the store on the day of launch."
