One really has to wonder who is in charge of the digital offerings of many mainstream publications. Even beyond the failed attempts to get readers to pay to read articles, it seems that most news publications fall somewhere between 5 and 6 years behind the rest of the web in embracing new technological paradigms.

In the case of the New York Times, it looks like they have finally caught up with Yahoo’s web portal offerings (circa 2000) with their new MyTimes feature.

MyTimes

MyTimes is exactly what you would expect and not much more. You have a section for Crossword puzzles, weather, news, technology and of course “much, much more”. The presentation is similar to every other portal news service from AOL on forward. Not that there is anything particularly wrong with releasing a copy-cat product, my contention is simply that a publication like the Times could do better.

With the kind of financial muscle that mainstream media is capable of leveraging one would think that they could afford to hire a tech of web professionals to consult them on how to expand their presence in fresh, new ways instead of rehashing old paradigms.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Maybe that is asking a bit too much. The service works, and the readership of the New York Times probably doesn’t expect some sort of new web masterpiece. The upside is that you can get article recommendations from New York Times journalists, a feature uniquely there own. Also, we must remember that of all of the major media publications, the Times has been well ahead of the web game. They were the first of the majors to provide an RSS feed, for example.

At best, MyTimes is a good “first attempt” at worst it is the New York Times coming to the game years too late. Lets hope, for their sake, it’s the former.

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