“It’s this huge indicator of whether or not our readers are actually taking our advice and trusting us – that feedback loop is never going to go away for us in terms of its importance.”Īnd thanks to the comprehensive nature of reviews, Wirecutter’s status as a trusted resource is likely to remain that way for years to come. Partnerships with brands remain incredibly important to Wirecutter, not just as a commercial concern but as a means of gauging the quality of its output.
This isn’t to suggest the business is abandoning its affiliate roots though. This aligned Wirecutter with the subscription model its parent has successfully pioneered for years now, and though Han acknowledges the concerns around how this might impact its reach were not surprising, the shift to a subscription model really signified to Wirecutter’s audience that proper journalism is worth paying for. While affiliate has been a cornerstone source of revenue for Wirecutter since its inception, the site’s acquisition by the New York Times in 2016 for more than $30m subsequently saw the erection of a paywall on its content for the first time last year. So, Han’s team operates completely independently from editorial, with the journalists unaware of any commercial agreements in place. Of course, balancing that commercial aspect with the editorial integrity of its reviewers was crucial for establishing this trust. “It’s so perfectly matched up from the perspective of being compensated for performance – performance is such a strong indicator of the reader’s trust.” It’s something earned over years of rigorous product testing by an impartial team of experts focused on finding and vetting the very best across more than 1,000 products and sharing that information as transparently as possible.Īs Leilani Han, Wirecutter’s executive director of commerce explained, “Our founder really instilled from the very beginning that, if you were doing right by the reader and putting them at the center of everything, then the rest will follow.”įor Han, the monetization of the site via affiliate was therefore a completely natural strategy. That kind of influence over such a huge audience of shoppers doesn’t just happen overnight. So trusted, in fact, that the so-called ‘Wirecutter effect’ describes the sudden surge in sales retailers face when one of their products is spotlighted by the team’s editors as a Wirecutter Pick. As Ben Smith, the Times’ own media columnist wrote: “The story of consolidation in media is a story about the New York Times itself.Founded in 2011 by Brian Lam, the product review and recommendation site Wirecutter has since grown to become one of the most-trusted consumer review sites in the US. Last year it was reported that the Times had more digital subscribers than the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Gannett’s 250 local newspapers combined. More than one in five newspapers have closed in the past decade and a half. Winner Take All: It is worth noting news junkies increasingly have fewer content options.
The company announced Wednesday third-quarter profits surged 63% thanks, in part, to a predicted rebound in advertising revenue (which tanked in the early days of the pandemic) and 455,000 new paying customers, giving the Gray Lady its best third-quarter since first constructing its big, beautiful paywall a decade ago. So much for the Trump Bump - even without “ the best thing that ever happened to the media,” the New York Times is having a great year.
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