[Leslie]

Someone leaked a confidential internal newsletter from the New York Times and it wound up on a journalism blog. I found this interesting little tidbit in it:

During Election week, Marketing and Circulation collaborated with Amazon.com to drive monthly subscriptions and single-copy sales through a special "sampling" offer to users of Kindle, Amazon's wireless reading device. All Kindle users had free access to New York Times content November 2-5. We supported this initiative through print and online ads, public relations and buzz marketing. As a result of this effort, 8,500 sample copies of The New York Times were downloaded to Kindle readers who do not subscribe to The Times on their device. This allowed us to introduce readers to The Times on Kindle reading experience. We now have more than 10,000 paid subscribers to The Times on Kindle as well as more than 2,000 subscribers to the various NYTimes blogs available via the device. We are considering a similar promotion around the inauguration in January.

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.niemanlab.org/pdfs/nyttimes3memo.pdf

 

[Teach142]

Wow!  Well, at least we know there are at least 10,000 Kindles out there.  Ok, 10,002, since we don't get the NYT.  I would like the NYP.  I would like to know how many are out there?  Have you any idea?

 

[Leslie]

Wow! Well, at least we know there are at least 10,000 Kindles out there. Ok, 10,002, since we don't get the NYT. I would like the NYP. I would like to know how many are out there? Have you any idea?

I have read estimates of 240,000 to 350,000 Kindles sold by the end of the year...but that number might be complete hogwash.

L

 

[Guest]

I would like the NYP.

Isn't the love of literacy and reading that drives one to purchase a Kindle in the first place kind of.... antithetical to the lurid tabloid nature of the Post?

 

[Kindler]

I have read estimates of 240,000 to 350,000 Kindles sold by the end of the year...but that number might be complete hogwash.

L

The 240k was TechCrunch's estimate that seemed reasonable before Oprah's announcement and support.

 

[Marci]

We are considering a similar promotion around the inauguration in January.

You can read the whole thing here: http://www.niemanlab.org/pdfs/nyttimes3memo.pdf

I'd love to have them do the same for the Inaugeral! I'm so excited about that I may take to day off to go to a party my brother is having

I did notice that Newsweek magazine was selling a collection of their articles about McCain and Obama for $3-4. Not sure if that was to get more readers are simply a way to make some money off of them.

Marci