Introducing New York Times Audio, a new app exclusively for New York Times news subscribers, featuring audio journalism and storytelling on everything from world events to what to cook.
Hi there 👋 My name’s Alex Rainert and I’m the Head of Audio Product at The New York Times and I’m only one of the many many wonderful product, design, editorial, marketing, engineering, data and research people responsible for bringing New York Times Audio to life.
Last week we launched NYT Audio to all Times News subscribers - it’s got reporter reads from Times journalists, narrated articles from other publications, new exclusive shows like The Headlines (3-4 big stories our newsroom is covering each weekday. Pairs great with The Daily), all our NYT pods, This American Life (each week’s episode drops a day early here), Serial & more...
New York Times Audio makes it easy for you to find something worth listening to every day. It’s anchored in what’s happening in the world around you, so when you open it each day it’ll give you a sense of the top stories and also lead you to discover what our editors have picked to meet the moment and tell the story of the day. It’s envisioned from the ground up for audio journalism.
What does that mean? It means it features different stories every day, depending on what’s happening around the world and in the culture at large.
It will catch you up on the latest stories, let you go deep in areas you’re most interested in, and offer culture and just good storytelling, too.
As we’ve done in print and online before, we’ll leverage editorial judgment to tell the story of the day with audio to meet the moment and help our users understand the world in a way that fits their increasingly busy lives.
We’re coming out of an 18 month beta where we’ve been programming the app every day, learning about how our listeners pick what to listen to and the kind of content and shows we feel can meet the variety of needs throughout the week we know people have. We believe people can and will go to big platforms for sheer volume of content, but they'll come to New York Times Audio for guidance of what's worth listening to today.
We’re thrilled to get this app out into the wild and excited to see how Times subscribers use it. You can learn more about it here and download it here.
Big thanks to @chrismessina for the the hunt. Here we go! 🎧✨
Very interesting to see the NYT continue to expand its app library — in order to control more of its content destiny with exclusive content... presumably to build a deeper relationship with its subscribers and to wrest back some control from podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify.
More background on the launch from @arainert.
You've hit the bullseye with your Audio Product Hunt launch! Congratulations on hitting the mark and capturing the attention of the news industry.
Keep it up guys.
Is there anything better than listening to your favorite articles?
Love the idea! Congrats 🙌
About New York Times Audio on Product Hunt
“News, depth and serendipity”
New York Times Audio launched on Product Hunt on May 22nd, 2023 and earned 144 upvotes and 7 comments, placing #15 on the daily leaderboard. Introducing New York Times Audio, a new app exclusively for New York Times news subscribers, featuring audio journalism and storytelling on everything from world events to what to cook.
New York Times Audio was featured in News (36.8k followers), Cooking (9k followers) and Audio (2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 10.4k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted New York Times Audio?
New York Times Audio was hunted by Chris Messina. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how New York Times Audio stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Chris Messina