NYT Undams River Of News With 'Times Wire'
This story was written by David Kaplan.
The New York Times's R&D group have been working overtime the past few days: in addition to bringing out Times Reader 2.0 on Monday, NYTimes.com has also gone live with Times Wire. Times Wire posts links to the paper's online articles and blog posts in a headline-based reverse chronological feed that updates every minute.
Users can choose to view the full stream of the NYtimes.com's stories, customize their own version by picking sections, or they can view it by a specific section. Times Wire also sports a photo gallery; hovering over the image provides a headlines, a brief description and a link to the related article. Users can opt for the RSS feed delivered through their own readers. Software company SAP is the initial sponsor of the company's first product built with its Newswire API.
The concept isn't new. It's actually like the "RSS river of news" entrepreneur/programmer Dave Winer first urged the paper to do years three years ao. He evn set up his own plain-text version. NYT do years ago. In fact, he spent a chunk of Monday evening twittering about the Times Wire herehe likes itand, of course, what he doesn't like about it, too.
TimesReader: The subscription-only Times Reader, which is $15 a month but free to home subscribers, has a new look. The e-paper is now on the *Adobe* AIR and Flash Platform, and works across Windows, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), and Linux. And its looks have improved with the new version too, which, based on reader feedback, now more closely resembles the actual paper than the web site. When users are online, they get a constant feed of breaking news that's updated every five minutes. The NYT's First Look blog has more details.
By David Kaplan