theories, innovation, new york times, totally obvious, maybe premature, traffic

NYT.com: Weight Way Down, Traffic Way Up

Each Friday, 'New York Times' deputy managing editor Jonathan Landman and NYT.com General Manager Vivian Schiller write an in-house email on the subject of The Future and The Internet and The Newsroom. This week: "The number of people coming to our website has really popped. The TechCrunch blog, a respected source, attributes this to the dismantling of our Times Select pay wall. It's reasonable as a hypothesis but premature as a conclusion. Lots of things affect Web traffic so it's hard to isolate individual factors. One thing that obviously has a big impact is news. Here's another, maybe not so obvious: Page weight.... In June, the home page took an average of 1.52 seconds to load. Heavy. For September, the first month our new page-lightening technology was fully installed, the load time dropped to 1.18 seconds, roughly a 22% improvement even though our page views grew by 19% over the same period (574 million in June to 683 million in September). Our performance has continued to improve since then: October: 1.15 seconds, November: 1.14, and so far in December: 0.96, while traffic continues to grow."

9:20 AM on Fri Dec 14 2007
By Choire
539 views
13 comments

Comments

TheHonJudgeSmails at 09:27 AM on 12/14/07
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Um, no... it was definitely the removal of TimesSelect.

Though I will be using the jargon "Page Weight" for quite some time now.
CodePink at 09:28 AM on 12/14/07
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Wait, so cyberpages have mass?! I'm scared! Virtual density? Hold me.
TheHonJudgeSmails at 09:31 AM on 12/14/07
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@CodePink: Maybe they mean "heavy" in the Marty McFly sense? Kids these days, with their slang. How's a crazy-haired, eccentric scientist supposed to keep up?
Goodbye, Commenters! at 09:36 AM on 12/14/07
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@TheHonJudgeSmails: Does this mean I have to start paying Krugman to refute Friedman directly?

By the way, have you checked out GawkerSelect? Everyone's naked!
PeenScene at 09:38 AM on 12/14/07
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In other words, the faster they shoot their load, the better.
Snarktastic at 09:44 AM on 12/14/07
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@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: Don't be fooled, that's just LolCait and a couple of funhouse mirrors.
ADismalScience at 09:46 AM on 12/14/07
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Hey Times:

Stop justifying past idiocy. You've made the right decision. You're reaping the rewards. You can't do that and still be "right back then." Just admit that you were wrong and stop trying to save face.
Goodbye, Commenters! at 09:47 AM on 12/14/07
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@Snarktastic: No, seriously. I'm on there now, and the only person with clothes on is CollegeCallgirl, who is dressed like a suffragette.
Snarktastic at 09:55 AM on 12/14/07
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@Cesare_the_Somnambulist: Is Choire over there? I'm not stripping off until El Jefe does.
the supergoddess at 10:02 AM on 12/14/07
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@CodePink: you are my density.
Carol Gardens at 10:38 AM on 12/14/07
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People like FREE! How hard it this to understand? Or admit?
CodePink at 10:40 AM on 12/14/07
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@the supergoddess: baby, if i had a nickel...
BadUncle at 10:45 AM on 12/14/07
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After we removed the garrote from the throat, the patient's skin changed from blue to pink. And a respected source attributes this to the restoration of oxygen to the lungs. It's reasonable as a hypothesis but premature as a conclusion