Are You a “TimesPeople”?

It’s in beta.

I wonder what the NY Times is up to?

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It’s basic right now, but as my friend Joha in Germany notes in the comments:

"This would make it one of the most powerful news-sharing-tools on
the web: Compared to, for example, del.icio.us, they have a special
target audience from the start (NYT-readers = picky, trustworthy mostly
interested in politics+ serious stuff). People can share and comment on
pages/articles/documents/videos all around the net, and via the API
they can pipe all these things anywhere they like.

And, by the way, this would be the beginning of the end of the era
of Digg-style news aggregators: It is not the masses (because they can
be manipulated), it is micro-groups and single persons you trust to get
your news from."

 

5 thoughts on “Are You a “TimesPeople”?”

  1. David, I think it makes sense. The plugin-idea is perfect for this, if they take it seriously, they will open it up to save other content than NYT-articles, too.

    This would make it one of the most powerful news-sharing-tools on the web: Compared to, for example, del.icio.us, they have a special target audience from the start (NYT-readers = picky, trustworthy mostly interested in politics+ serious stuff). People can share and comment on pages/articles/documents/videos all around the net, and via the API they can pipe all these things anywhere they like.

    And, by the way, this would be the beginning of the end of the era of Digg-style news aggregators: It is not the masses (because they can be manipulated), it is micro-groups and single persons you trust to get your news from. You just have to detect the right people – and the NYT audience offers a solid base to find somebody. And, because we all still have the login from former days (the registration-wall prooves to be useful, finally!), the hurdles to start with it are not as high as to register completely new.

    If they execute this in the right way, it will work.

  2. I just signed up for People, and I can’t see anyone else in the systen…anyone else having that problem?

    And while you’re at it, add me to your network so we can test out. (I promise I recommend the *coolest* stuff).

  3. @Mary Specht

    To the right of the toolbar, click the ‘Add / Remove’ link. From there you can search for people.

    I hope that helps get you started…

  4. Me again –

    I think its worth noting that the content is not limited to articles (though I imagine this will be the bulk of actions for most people), but topic pages, travel guides, comments, most multimedia (graphics, slideshows), blog posts, archives and such.

    We’re only getting started and I’m working on incorporating this deeper into our site (its a big site with many many moving parts – so please go easy on me 🙂 )

    We’re working on the list of actions too; recommend, comment, rated and more. We should see that grow in some ways as we gather more feedback and see how this levels out.

    In my mind the one thing being over-looked is the xml and json links at the bottom of every user page with the last 75 actions performed. I personally am very curious (and eager) to see if anyone does anything interesting with that…

  5. My god, the NY Times is finally doing things correctly. First they surprised me by starting to use Twitter correctly (not dump 20+ links in the stream @ 4AM). Now this…

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