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As Abramson said in today’s memo, ‘In order to expand digitally and internationally in the exciting ways we have planned, it is natural to reshape our contours.’

What might this re-contoured Times look like? More opinion, certainly, but also more ‘branded’ news events. To wit: Last month, the Times’ business news site, Dealbook, put on a conference featuring its star news columnist, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and opinion columnist, Paul Krugman, along with the subjects of Sorkin’s beat, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, as guest panelists. Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote that the ‘chummy’ affair made her ‘queasy.’ (…)

But the event was lucrative. And the Times is exploring ways it can expand on the concept. In today’s paper, the Times is advertising a cruise to Europe for readers next fall, which will feature writers and columnists like Elisabeth Bumiller, David Sanger, Timothy Egan, and Wendy Schiller. And it recently sent out a survey to select readers asking them if they’d like to chat online with some of the Times’ writers from the ‘Biz Day,’ ‘Dining,’ and ‘Culture’ sections, and whether they’d be willing to pay a premium for the access