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Memo today in the New York Times newsroom.
From: Arthur Sulzberger JR.
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 11:36 AM
To: NY TIMES NOTES; NY TIMES INTERNET; ALL IHTNEWS
Subject: Our Digital Future
Colleagues,
Earlier today we announced the new role Denise Warren will be playing in building our digital future. This is an exciting move, as Martin Nisenholtz has noted in an earlier e-mail, but it's only a part of a broader series of changes we're making in the structure of NYTimes.com to ensure greater integration, alignment, speed and surety.
Denise also will be part of a new business/news operating group for NYTimes.com under Martin's leadership to manage budget, strategic and policy issues for our Web operations. Jon Landman will be the newsroom's representative in that group and Carla Robbins will represent the editorial department. Jon and Carla, will of course, continue to report to Bill Keller and Andy Rosenthal.
The purpose of this tighter, new group is to move the Web site forward even faster, as we continue to roll out new products and align those products with the increasingly diverse needs of our readers and advertisers in this country and around the world.We began this process in 2005 when we integrated the news and advertising departments in the paper with their counterparts at the Web site. We sought to create an organization with the skills and competencies needed to take full advantage of the journalistic and financial potential of the Internet. We knew this required developing breakthrough products, new opportunities for interaction with our site and better ways for our advertisers to speak to their best customers.
We did this all and more. Embracing a new way of operating has made a significant difference. Three years later our audience has roughly tripled in size; we are now nearly twice as large as the next nearest newspaper-owned Web site, and we've amassed the Web's most influential audience. These achievements can be attributed to our ability to create exciting new forms of Web journalism, introduce new applications like TimesPeople and Times Extra and offer a more compelling user experience with an impressive range of multimedia applications. All this innovation has made a significant contribution to our bottom line, as NYTimes.com's advertising revenue continues to grow --- almost 20 percent through October.
Let me express my deep gratitude to all who have contributed to our considerable online success. With your dedication and innumerable
contributions, NYTimes.com will become an even more integral part of our future.Arthur