So, three months later, how many people have signed up to pay $5 a week, or $260 a year, to get unfettered access to newsday.com?
The answer: 35 people. As in fewer than three dozen. As in a decent-sized elementary-school class.
The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million, according to Mr. Jimenez. With those 35 people, they’ve grossed about $9,000.
In that time, without question, web traffic has begun to plummet, and, certainly, advertising will follow as well.
Of course, there are a few caveats. Anyone who has a newspaper subscription is allowed free access; anyone who has Optimum Cable, which is owned by the Dolans and Cablevision, also gets it free. Newsday representatives claim that 75 percent of Long Island either has a subscription or Optimum Cable.
“We’re the freebie newsletter that comes with your HBO,” sniffed one Newsday reporter.
Mr. Jimenez was in no mood to apologize. “That’s 35 more than I would have thought it would have been,” said Mr. Jimenez to the assembled staff, according to five interviews with Newsday staffers.
“Given the number of households in our market that have access to Newsday’s Web site as a result of other subscriptions, it is no surprise that a relatively modest number have chosen the pay option,” said a Cablevision spokeswoman.
Those are pretty big caveats. The number of people in Long Island that don’t have a Newsday subscription or a Cablevision hook-up is pretty small. And while Newsday staffers may believe otherwise, the rest of the world really doesn’t care about their coverage of national or international news.
And that Web site usage is dropping off because it’s a terrible Web site. It looks like a poorly thought-out site for a CW television station, not a site promoting print news.
The Newsday paywall experience is more about what happens if you have good penetration with other subscription models and a worst-in-show Web site, not the viability, or lack thereof, of paywalls.
(And really, New York Observer? You’re going to take shots at any other paper, while printing yours on pink, excuse me, salmon newsprint? Really?)
Although J. Jonah Jameson’s newsroom was supposed to be a scary environment for Peter Parker, even as a kid, I realized that the Daily Bugle was a heck of a lot more realistic than the bland Daily Planet that Clark Kent worked at. Jameson and much of the rest of the staff are pretty recognizable newsroom staples, to the extent that I suspect a lot more people with actual knowledge of newsrooms have written stories relating to the Bugle than ever have dealt with the Planet.
Of course, this is comics, after all, where Superman can die, Batman can get his spine snapped, get better, and then later die, and eventually, it all works out. So the Bugle will be back in some form, eventually. Hopefully not as a TV station, which some fans seem to think is a more realistic choice — the issues of Amazing Spider-Man leading up to the Bugle’s destruction in December talked about the state of the newspaper industry repeatedly — when broadcast news is also facing its own substantial challenges. The folks at Marvel Comics’ House of Ideas will probably have to come up with a novel solution all their own on how to revitalize the Daily Bugle — and, frankly, the newspaper industry could use the help in that regard.
One of the things that I’ve learned from listening to Coverville for the past few years is that a great song can take a lot of interpretation by other artists. That’s as opposed to a great performance, which might well be singular. There are great performances that we mistake for great songs, but since no one else can do even a credible job with said song, it becomes clear that it’s just the performance that’s great, not the song at all.
In any case, “Glory Box,” originally performed by Portishead, is a great song.
Inexplicably, it never registered on the charts in the United States.
John Martyn’s cover makes me want to hear this done with a full-on blues approach, and no instrumentation or arrangements that aren’t true to that genre.
Here are the songs I listened to most on my iPhone last year:
1. “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” – Cage the Elephant
2. “Basket (Live)” – The Blakes
3. “Little Toy Gun” – Honeyhoney
4. “Methamphetamine” – Old Crow Medicine Show
5. “Fresh Blood” – Eels
6. “After Hours” – Rilo Kiley
7. “Ghost Town” – Shiny Toy Guns
8. “Wild One” – Those Darlins
9. “Titus Andronicus” – Titus Andronicus
10. “I Feel Weird” – Steel Train
11. “No Hope Kids” – Wavvves
12. “It’s a New Day” – will.i.am
13. “The Dissociative Fugue” – XOXO
14. “Coffin Factory” – The Mumblers
15. “Here It Goes Again (UK Surf)” – Ok Go
16. “Just Like Heaven” – The Watson Twins
17. “Strange Times” – Black Keys
18. “I’m Bad” – The Last Vegas
19. “Heterosexual Man” – The Odds
20. “Cartoons and Forever Plans” – Maria Taylor
21. “15 to 20 (feat. Lady Tigra)” by The Phenomenal Handclap Band
22. “I Just Want to Celebrate” by Rare Earth
23. “Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh” by Say Hi
24. “Percussion Gun” by White Rabbits
25. “Boom” by Anjulie
26. “Sorrow (Acoustic Version)” by Bad Religion
27. “Slogans” by Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard
28. “Oxygen” by Living Things
29. “Faith & Tenderness” by Liz Phair
30. “I Would Die 4 U” by Mariachi El Bronx
31. “Best Time to Say Goodbye” by The New Fidelity
32. “Alabama High-Test” by Old Crow Medicine Show
33. “It Don’t Move Me” by Peter Bjorn and John
34. “Science vs. Romance” by Rilo Kiley
35. “Sacred Trickster” by Sonic Youth
36. “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton
37. “Major Tom” by Shiny Toy Guns
38. “You Can Be Timeless” by The Henry Clay People
39. “Hymn #101” by Joe Pug
40. “1901” by Phoenix
41. “Horchata” by Vampire Weekend
42. “I Know What I Am” by Band of Skulls
43. “On My Way” by Billy Boy on Poison
44. “Boogie” by Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears
45. “Show Me What I’m Looking For” by Carolina Liar
46. “Believe” by Dirty Heads
47. “Rose City” by Vica Voce
48. “The Thief & The Heartbreaker” by Alberta Cross
49. “Chosen Armies” by Children Collide
50. “Trans Canada” by Constantines
51. “Run Chicken Run” by The Felice Brothers
52. “I Hate People” by Jemina Pearl & Iggy Pop
53. “Rebel Side of Heaven” by Langhorne Slim
54. “Above the Bones” by Mishka
55. “Wavin’ Flag” by K’naan
56. “Take Me With U” by Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
57. “Sleepyhead” by Passion Pit
58. “I’m an Adult Now” by The Pursuit of Happiness
59. “Willie the Wimp (And His Cadillac Coffin)” by Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
60. “White As Diamonds” by Alela Diane
61. “Weightless” by All Time Low
62. “Nothing Ever Happened” by Deerhunter
63. “The Ark” by Dr. Dog
64. “Smoke a Little Smoke” by Eric Church
65. “Re: Your Brains” by Jonathan Coulton
66. “Bloodletting” by Concrete Blonde
67. “Stillness is the Move” by Dirty Projectors
68. “Nobody Knows You” by Office
69. “Cocaine Habit” by Old Crow Medicine Show
70. “Burial Sounds” by the Phantom Band
71. “Let’s Go Crazy” by Riverboat Gamblers
72. “Train in Vain” by Susan & The Surftones
73. “Mandala (feat. Anoushka Shankar)” by Thievery Corporation
74. “Born On a Day the Sun Didn’t Rise” by Black Moth Super Rainbow
75. “Skinny Love” by Bon Iver
76. “Hey Ya” by Booker T.
77. “Beesting” by Buildings Breeding
78. “Darling Nikki” by Chairlift
79. “Down In Mexico” by the Coasters
80. “No One Does It Like You” by Department of Eagles
81. “40 Day Dream” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
82. “Devil Dog” by Eels
83. “Cheerleader” by Grizzly Bear
84. “Fire (Put in the Air)” by the Knux
85. “3rd Eye Vision” by Mishka
86. “London Calling” by the Pyronauts
87. “Dead Sound” by The Raveonettes
88. “Don’t Tempt Me” by Todd Snider
89. “Rudie Can’t Fail” by the Cocktail Preachers
90. “Mykonos” by Fleet Foxes
91. “Out at Sea” by Heartless Bastards
92. “Cities Burning Down” by Howling Bells
93. “Vapours” by Islands
94. “Bang” by Rye Rye & M.I.A.
95. “When Doves Cry” by the Twilight Singers
96. “Farewell to the Fairground” by White Lies
97. “Take Me Home” by After Midnight Project
98. “Scavengers of the Damned (Amended)” by Aiden
99. “Art of Revolution” by Bassnectar
100. “Safe European Home” by the Bombers/Vivesectors
