The New York Times Gets It So, So Wrong
March 16, 2007 |
At a time when most companies are going out of their way to engage potential customers with online communities, API sharing, and making as much information as they can easily accessible, the New York Times has decided to head in the opposite direction with their launch of the paid Times Reader .
Times Reader will be free for New York Times subscribers and university students with a valid .edu email address, but for the general public, the service will set you back $14.95 USD a month or $165.00 USD for a yearly subscription.
The service has been available for a period of time in beta, and provides the reader with what promises to be a virtual read of the actual newspaper, preserving the layout and style of the print version of the paper. With Times Reader, you can sync up to the site and then read the paper online, refreshing content the new time you are online.
Times Reader is based on Windows Presentation Foundation, which allows the reader to format to the screen size without scrolling. The set-up is such that you can "flip" pages of news with arrow keys.
The real question here is why, when the next wave of Internet technology is moving toward browser-independent apps and aggregating information, The Times chooses to create an app that really doesn't do anything but feed you their news. It's cheaper than subscribing to the print version, I suppose, but how many tech-savvy folks are going to pay to read news from one source when they can grab it from scores of online sources for free, reading it all in one reader. It's almost as if The Times is trying to force devoted readers back into a time when information was handed to them, with little to no participation involved. I'm not sure they can stop progress.
Additional source: ZDNet
