222,300 is my new gauge of desperation, replacing Match.com's " more than 500,000."

Right on. It's not a moneymaker, and it's bad for the editorial identity of the paper, because people without TimesSelect can't read -- and then forward -- the columnists. The "Most Popular" section online speaks for itself. Before TimesSelect, Friedman, Dowd, Krugman, and the gang all regularly appeared among the most forwarded articles. Now, not so much.

On the other hand, maybe the Times should be congratulated for hastening the irrelevance of Maureen Dowd.

of course it's a failure. why else would they have started giving free accounts to anyone with a .edu email a few months ago?

@iplaudius: Even if Her Royal Grayness ever repeals TimesSelect, I've been too well trained by now to just skip over anything marked with a "$" and I will continue to assume that I'm not missing a goddamn thing by passing over the Op-eds.

just another step in the times direction of catering exclusively to the top 1%, from last week's depressing magazine to enough altercations fodder for eternity.

@a lady: "smarter" potential clients. people who two or five or ten years from now will be in decision-making positions and who will likely have the income to buy the high-end products advertised by the times.

i can say that i have never (intentionally) clicked through to an ad on gawker. i have, on the other hand, paid for access to a few times select articles. so, you know, whatever.

@the_mayoress: @tammyfey: i had the sad opportunity the other day to hear a radio station in the middle of the country. the sponsor for the hour of music, the "top seven at seven" or whatever the fuck, was a shop that sells "rims." "they've got rims hanging in the window so you can see them when you drive by." "they'll put your stock rims back on in the winter AT NO EXTRA CHARGE so your new rims look good all the time."

we are a nation of retards. between that and the op-ed page of the times, i'm siding with the nyt.

Joe_Welcome:

they only put your stock rims back on in the winter at no extra charge if you sign up for RimsSelect.

It's in the fine print.

@the_mayoress: I don't think you know what "exclusive" means.

Whatever the earning/spending potential of .edu clients, it's also true that most educational institutions offer the NYT via online library subscriptions. On many campuses, the print copy is distributed freely (liberally, some would say). Because the complete content is often easily accessible to them at no charge, .edu clients are unlikely to pay for TimesSelect.

That, and the fact that students are poor, and professors are cheap.

I'm one of the few silly enough to pay for Times Select, but after the tedious drivel Dowd has been writing for the past couple of years, I want a refund. Perhaps I'll switch to paying for the WSJ, what with all their editorial independence...

A day without NYT-bashing is hardly worth living. However, it is also true that dead tree subscribers get access to Times Select free gratis no charge. So libtards such as myself pay for Bill Keller to personally bring us the Sunday papers with our hangover remedies, and get TS as part of the deal! The moral of the story - that there are lots more than 223,400 people using TS.

Gawker: TimesSelect is a failure. Nuh doy.

@a lady: How do you sign up? I have an '.edu' email. Be service-y!

@tammyfey:

Being locked out is a real Times-saver.

I'm whittling down the sections, one by one; no columnists; no Styles articles if I can avoid them -- Gawker already saves me the trouble of having to weed through those. I almost never read the magazine anymore, and while I still read books, the transcript of the interview with the NYTBR editor Gawker published made a snakepit sound paradisical by contrast.

@htotheomo:

I looked into that a little while ago. I followed all the steps but balked at having to falsely claim I was an academic or student.

Google "TimesSelect .edu"

Actually, I have a way to access TS if I really want to, on another computer, but Jesus, if they're going to make it that hard, screw 'em. I'm still pissed off about Iraq.

When I was a little girl, I was so enamored of the NYT that I once took paper and traced the outlines of the letters on the nameplate.

Such, such were the joys.

Count me as a select sucker. Krugman was the sell for me.
Friedman is spent. Kristof seems like an earnest fellow and Modo's got a nice doo. But not enough happenning to renew.
Plus you can pick up PK's feed in in like the San Jose Mercury a week later- so WTF. Why did I pay?

Very funny post, especially the part about going "all crazy-dull trade paper on you." I worked for a "major metropolitan daily," a Madison Avenue ad agency, a PBS affiliate and now I amuse myself as a blogger. I'd have to say that you are probably right about TimesSelect being a bad media decision by the Times Corporations' Senior Finance V.P.s, but like the one other poster noted, you'd really need to know how many print edition subscribers access "TimesSelect" content to make your argument credible, rather than relying on the 223,300 number you use.

I don't know if you allow trackback-like links, but I linked to this article on my own blog at:

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