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NY ‘Times’ Crossword Editor Will Shortz Is Back in the Game
The decades-stale fill of the pre-Shortz crosswords, when any reference less than 25 years old was deemed suspect, has been replaced by BABYSHARK. Female constructors and constructors of color have ticked up but still fall far short of parity. (The Times runs an annual Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship to try to address this.)
When Shortz started out, he was the Times’ sole full-time puzzle employee; now, there are roughly 100. The main crossword has been joined by the Mini and new games like Wordle and Connections with more likely to come. The “Games” department is a major moneymaker and subscription driver to an increasingly polyvalent company. The paper is cagey about specific numbers, but more than 11 billion of its puzzles were solved last year. More than 150 crossword submissions come in every week, of which 10 to 15 percent make it to the weekly Thursday “maybe” meeting. Shortz has the final say.
Less is more, and discounts work: A new study looks at the minutiae of paywall strategy | Nieman Journalism Lab
Less is more, and discounts work: A new study looks at the minutiae of paywall strategy
The Athletic Will Officially Launch Its First Game During the Big Game, Bringing Sports and Puzzle Fans a Daily Challenge to Test Their Sports Knowledge | The New York Times Company
“Building off the enthusiasm surrounding Connections and the passion sports fans have for competition and bragging rights, we combined the puzzle expertise of the New York Times Games team with the sports expertise of The Athletic to create our first game catering to sports fans,” said David Perpich, publisher of The Athletic. “We know fans already turn to The Athletic for deep reporting on their favorite teams and leagues, and Connections: Sports Edition feels like the perfect opportunity for them to pair their sports knowledge with fun wordplay. And what better time to officially launch than during the biggest game day of the year.”
Private Equity for Apps: Evernote’s Owner Has Big Plans - Bloomberg
As an acquirer, Bending Spoons has a type: distressed businesses with a steady cash flow that sell subscription software. Then it brings in twentysomething coders and data scientists in Italy who add features and sometimes push the limits of what subscribers will pay. To set these apps on a new path, the company often fires the employees it inherited.
What I learned in year four of Platformer
The main thing, aside from the dubious hypergrowth of our mailing list, was new paid monthly subscribers. On Substack last year, we saw substantially more readers willing to pay us $10 to try out Platformer for a month. This is likely for a mix of editorial reasons and platform dynamics. On the editorial side, we broke more news last year than we have so far in 2024. That means that last year we were getting in front of more readers, and more of those readers were happy to pay us for our scoops.
