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May 23, 2008
esmith
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Times Reader – A Different Approach

As we previously posted in a study on American newspapers and their use of the internet, the formatting of newspapers and the internet don't really go hand in hand. It has been a struggle for the folks at McClatchy and the New York Times Company to develop profitable methods as the internet sprawl continues its onward march.

Let me introduce the NY Times Reader, a desktop-based web application designed for reading the times on your laptop or tablet PC. It made its initial windows release in 2007, but just today the NYT digital production team announced the macintosh release (beta).

With a monthly subscription price of $14.95, it clocks in at a substantial discount over home delivery (this varies depending on your location) and has a host of features that the traditional bi-fold simply cannot offer. To me, the standout features were a rotating selection of crossword puzzles and the seven day archive of previous papers. The application updates automatically, and once papers are loaded they can be read while your laptop is offline; this is convenient when you're on the subway or lost at sea .

As many Macintosh users have already pointed out on the digital production team's release, the apple-friendly port requires the installation of Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in (the project was a collaboration between the NYT and Microsoft). Here's a tip for success: don't try and force Macintosh fans to use Microsoft products. I heard somewhere that they don't usually appreciate it.

I'm interested to see if anybody has used this application. It seems like they took the cue from the "Adobe AIR approach" and went in a direction that could be more successful than trying to profit from just a web-based reading service. Thoughts? Predictions?

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  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    I used the PC version of this back in the day and thought it was DOA (dead on arrival). I just don’t think people want to rifle through a newspaper from some desktop application like that.

    On the other hand, this probably doesn’t take much for the Times to implement, so if they can make a few bucks so be it. They certainly won’t be getting my money though.

  • http://www.bivingsreport.com Todd Zeigler

    I used the PC version of this back in the day and thought it was DOA (dead on arrival). I just don’t think people want to rifle through a newspaper from some desktop application like that.

    On the other hand, this probably doesn’t take much for the Times to implement, so if they can make a few bucks so be it. They certainly won’t be getting my money though.

  • http://www.themodernjournalist.com Brad King

    The Adobe Air is absolutely the correct way to go about desktop applications; but like technology companies, news organizations have to realize that the best way for them to spread the word, so to speak, is to create a syndicated version of a desktop application that allows people to both read their work (on and offline) and comment (on and offline) and write emails to the editorial staff (on and offline) and share stories with friends (on and offline).

    If they do that, news organizations will have a powerful application which — with upgrades — can be linked to Digg, blogs, ect.

  • http://www.themodernjournalist.com Brad King

    The Adobe Air is absolutely the correct way to go about desktop applications; but like technology companies, news organizations have to realize that the best way for them to spread the word, so to speak, is to create a syndicated version of a desktop application that allows people to both read their work (on and offline) and comment (on and offline) and write emails to the editorial staff (on and offline) and share stories with friends (on and offline).

    If they do that, news organizations will have a powerful application which — with upgrades — can be linked to Digg, blogs, ect.

  • http://www.themodernjournalist.com/2008/05/26/a-desktop-home-for-news-organizations/ The Modern Journalist » Blog Archive » A Desktop Home for News Organizations

    [...] In the past, news organizations have tried to build their own systems, thinking much like technology companies believing they can create the proprietary system that everyone will use. Occasionally that works. Most of the time, it doesn’t. Particularly in the news field. [...]

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