Jobs was particularly interested in striking a deal with the New York Times,which he felt was a great newspaper in danger of declining because it had not figured out how to charge for digital content."One of my personal projects this year, I've decided, is to try to help -- whether they want it or not -- the Times," he told me early in 2010."I think it's important to the country for them to figure it out."During his New York trip, he went to dinner with fifty top Times executives in the cellar private dining room at Pranna, an Asian restaurant.He ordered a mango smoothie and a plain vegan pasta, neither of which was on the menu.There he showed off the iPad and explained how important it was to find a modest price point for digital content that consumers would accept.He drew a chart of possible prices and volume.How many readers would they have if the Times were free?They already knew the answer to that extreme on the chart,because they were giving it away for free on the web already and had about twenty million regular visitors.And if they made it really expensive?They had data on that too; they charged print subscribers more than $300 a year and had about a million of them."You should go after the midpoint, which is about ten million digital subscribers," he told them.
