New York Times Surrenders To Social News

December 11th, 2006 at 12:12 am

I think this is a great development on the part of the NYT - I think of all the big newspapers, they have done the best job in adapting to the new media environment. To take it to the next level, they need kill the registration requirement so people who are attracted from digg and facebook don’t have to deal with that barrier.

But why do you characterize this “surrendering?” This seems like more of a progressive, proactive move than anything else. And who considers the NYT that elitist, apart from the Fox News crowd? They are one of the most respected news organizations on the planet.

December 11th, 2006 at 12:15 am

Jon: Looks like we’re thinking on the same frequency.

December 11th, 2006 at 12:41 am

Has The New York Times Removed the JavaScript that prevented it from being in a Frame?

This made it difficult to submit a Times Story to Reddit or NowPublic or other FRAMED social sites.

Supposed Digg was a FRAME site, wonder if the impact of losing all that potential traffic would have made them do away with the Script?

December 11th, 2006 at 1:03 am

I believe this will be a real great news, but they gotta be careful because socialising mite lead to bad effect, this shouldnt go anti-social, as long as the tool is used for what it is made,then its fine.

December 11th, 2006 at 3:24 am

User feedback only exposes the weaknesses and indicates on strong points. It is the only unbised feedback which can be used to improve business operations and bottomlines. Blogosphere and interactivity is here to stay. Better adapt and change the way world goes than perish.

December 11th, 2006 at 5:34 am

Let’s drop the attitude, ok? there is a difference between intelligent criticism and adolescent inventive. You guys are walking a fine line…

thanks.

December 11th, 2006 at 5:44 am

Jacob - I agree with your comment on the validation of these social media sites through the acceptance of mainstream media. The one thing that I hope is that with this integration of Digg and other Social Tagging/Media sites into the mainstream (marketwatch has added these as well), that emphasis is put into the proper usage of these new tools.

December 11th, 2006 at 6:49 am

Yes…very smart move on the part of NYT. Those other sites have traffic and if NYT is losing Readership then its a great way to stabilise or even improve things.

Great strategic move.

http://www.revafinancial.squarespace.com

December 11th, 2006 at 7:02 am

And also I would ask, Is any of those bigger older media houses planning to acquire any of these social networking sites or do they prefer to build their own.

December 11th, 2006 at 8:23 am

Regarding the “observations” about the NYT, no one can deny that as of late they have stumbled a bit regarding quality and reputation (Jayson Blair, anyone? It’s admitted flawed reporting during the run up to the Iraq War by the paper’s ombudsman? Judith Miller/Ahmad Chalabi situation?) Let’s just say that while the NYT is certainly still relevant and well known (but probably less respected) paper, “The Great Lady” is not as great as it once was.

December 11th, 2006 at 9:34 am

I brought up the importance of this partnership as a marketing vehicle for Digg, Facebook and Newsvine in my original story last night, which includes Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson saying that he thinks it could be a huge boost to his site. (It received about 560,000 unique visitors last month).

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....ine11.html

I also addressed why some newspapers prefer the conversations about their stories to occur on third party Web sites in this blog post:

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.....109532.asp

As to the broken link issue, check out my blog post above which also includes information about how NYTimes.com is now providing permalinks that don’t break after a week or two.

John Cook
Business Reporter
Seattle P-I

December 11th, 2006 at 10:29 am

Lars, I wondered about Reddit, too.

And I agree with the those of you who’ve mentioned the attitude towards the Times isn’t necessary.

I recall Michael Arrington, on a panel at the Online News Association conference in Washington, DC a few months ago, generalized that Times reporters and their sources belong to the same country clubs and golf together, or something of that nature (I cannot quote him directly). Later in the panel he apologized, drawing cheers from the audience.

I think TechCrunch readers would appreciate less attitude toward developments at the Times. Your post about the Times’ foray into social bookmarking sites, however, is otherwise a useful one.

December 11th, 2006 at 11:20 am

How about the other sites? Aren’t you supposed to add Delicious and MySpace first? If you’re going this route, go with the big guys for the numbers.

Or is that a $$$ thing?

December 11th, 2006 at 12:17 pm

Oh please, cut Natali some slack. All these papers, NYT, Washington Post hesitate to recognize how they need to catch up. The WashPost recently hired Rob Curley recently b/c it’s taken them time to evolve.

December 11th, 2006 at 1:42 pm

Mike, no need to wonder about that, as I said, my support does stem from their support of RSS. Editorially, I think they’ve been out to lunch on blogging, writing from an undisclosed conflict of interest (the reporters are out of jobs if blogging is too successful). I’ve had other dealings with the Times that was far less than enlightened. On the other hand I’ve been reading the paper since I could read, being a native NYer, so it’s not a casual relationship, and a mixed one. And they were the ones that called me an “irascible gadfly” so there’s no love lost there either.

But Mike, they were pivotal in RSS, and I’ve heard you say once or twice yourself that RSS is pretty important stuff.

December 11th, 2006 at 2:10 pm

Hmmm.

I don’t think this deserves a response other than I doubt it’s true about Jarvis and Rafat, and I know it’s not true about me.

Back off dude, you’re in over your head.

December 11th, 2006 at 4:25 pm

Arrington, please cut the crap… you’re making way more than a hundred thousand dollars a month with a blog that has only TWO employees and no more than six posts a day… even worse, it quite often features biased opinions and reviews, bought by money and nothing else…

Your editorial quality is getting worse every day, and all you do is show off yourself burning money on a magazine. You should be absolutely ashamed!