Why not charge people for the experience of how they consume your content? I read the New York Times every day on my iPhone beause they have an iPhone app. I prefer to read it using the app because it downloads the content and I can read it on the subway when I have no signal. Browsing even the NYT mobile site is not a great experience. So I would be willing to pay some small subscription charge a year to use that app to consume the NYT. In the same way I would way those small dollars for a Web app. I paid $25 to Remember the Milk, so the NYT is worth that to me at least, especially if they gave me a premium version of their reader that was faster, cached more etc. Maybe it would even read the articles to me.

Perhaps the most expensive means of consuming the content should be the printed copy that gets delivered to your door. A newspaper: the ultimate aggregator, with a take anywhere interface, delivered right to your door every day. That is (or should be) regarded as a premium product. Not something you give away as some newspaper (National Post comes to mind), do now. The lowest end should be the company's site that should be full of ads so that the experience of consuming the content that way is not anywhere near as good as the paid methods.

Finally, what does it say when a Canadian prefers to get news from the New York Times rather than the Globe & Mail because the Globe doesn't have an iPhone app? I don't think I'm alone in thinking that those who complain the most are also the ones least willing to rethink the problem.

Robin Gambhir,
Toronto, Canada.

PS: I'm looking forward to the Globe's iPhone app.

So, yes, absolutely the newspapers need a new business model, and, no, nobody knows what it is yet.