![]() While interesting in the abstract, I just can’t see a strong case for the app unless you’re some sort of New York Times completist. Maybe it’s just the giant apocalyptic cloud that’s been hovering over the podcast world of late, but I’ll be frank. I’m fairly certain some number of people like this exist, but the obvious follow-up needs to be asked: Just how many are there? More importantly, is it enough to justify the existence of this app? When looking at the app all at once, a basic product question arises: Who is this for? One imagines the answer wraps around the presumed existence of a subsection of the New York Times paid-subscription base who might consider themselves, and behave accordingly, as “ Times Audio superfans.” Perhaps they are a Daily head, or an Ezra Klein head, or a Hard Fork head who hasn’t already stretched themselves across the rest of the portfolio and could be productively exposed to other offerings within the context of the app. (Fun fact: This was exactly the kind of podcast construction that drove the original wave of news podcasts back in the mid-to-late 2000s.) Finally, the exclusive offerings are rounded out by a steadily replenishing stream of short pieces from the “Culture” section that feel like rough cuts of something more complete. There’s also Reporter Reads, which is exactly what it sounds like: Each dispatch features a different reporter briefly talking about a piece they wrote, followed by them reading it out loud. Chief among them is a new daily-news product called The Headlines, presumably meant to either be a brisker and broader-covering alternative to The Daily or an expanded version of the closing “Here’s What Else You Need to Know Today” section that caps off each Daily installment. To be sure, there are genuine exclusives on the app. On top of that, while the narrated written works are considered unique to the app, one could easily convert them into a roughly equivalent experience using Pocket’s automated text-to-speech feature, if you’re down with that kind of thing (and, speaking from experience, plenty of people really are). So it’s a pretty healthy bundle on paper, except for one thing: The vast majority of that content is available elsewhere. A basic product question arises: Who is this for? That narrated-article feature extends beyond the Times’ own material, as the offering also covers a curated selection of articles from other publications, including New York Magazine. In addition to The Daily and all the other original programming from the News Audio and Opinion Audio teams (which is already a lot), the roster also includes shows from acquired divisions like the Athletic and Serial Productions episodes of This American Life, with which the Times has a marketing relationship as part of the Serial Productions deal and professionally narrated written works as facilitated by the purchase of Audm. ![]() That actually covers quite a bit of ground, as the Gray Lady has built out a sizable audio footprint over the years through both in-house development and acquisitions. Specifically, it’s a portal to the New York Times’ own vision of audio journalism. ![]() What they actually built is something nobody has created yet, which is a portal to the world of audio journalism.” “Then they gave the new app as a beta tester, and I realized that I was wrong about what they were building. “What I understood them to be working was a podcast, and I thought to myself, Who needs another podcast app?” said Klein. The announcement page regards it as a “front page” for the expanding New York Times Audio universe, while a recent episode of The Ezra Klein Show opened with a plug that underlined the intended differentiation. (I was in the beta testing pool?) In any case, it’s here now, available for use by existing paid New York Times subscribers, and the final product is something that can be a little hard to immediately wrap your head around.įirst things first, though - it’s not a podcast app. So long, in fact, I’d forgotten the beta was still on my phone. Last week, the New York Times officially rolled out its stand-alone audio app, which had been gestating in development for a good long while. The newspaper of record’s new product probably won’t replace your favorite podcast app.
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