No More Paper Boy: New York Times Reader 2.0 Delivers

New York Times

Times Reader 2.0 is built on the Adobe AIR platform, offering a desktop application that aggregates news from the site in easy-to-read columns. News items can be customized to fit the particular tastes of individual readers. That means that if a reader is interested in financial, tech and arts news, those categories can be selected, with news filling into the Times Reader in reverse chronological order.

In fact, the Adobe AIR application downloads all of the day's news. That means that once the Times Reader is populated, a reader doesn't have to have a connection to the Web in order to read the newspaper.

The goal of the Times Reader 2.0 is to present regular New York Times readers with something resembling a digital facsimile of the printed paper. Each section of the paper is represented in the Times Reader 2.0 and appears on the same day it would appear in print— "Science Times" on Tuesday and "Dining" on Wednesday, for example. Any section with too many headlines to fit on a single page flows onto a second page with easy scrolling navigation.

A "browse" feature is also included and provides a "flyover" view of the paper, with the goal of re-creating the "serendipity factor" that print readers have grown accustomed to. The serendipity factor occurs when a reader scans pages in the print version of the paper and just happens upon a story he or she might not have otherwise found.

In addition to the printed news, the Times Reader 2.0 includes support for video, which can be watched in the Adobe application, as well as access to crossword puzzles.

The trick for the Grey Lady, of course, is figuring out a way to make money off its news coverage in an online arena where consumers have gotten used to free content. To that end, the Times Reader 2.0 will be included in the cost of a print subscription. Otherwise, interested readers can download the Adobe AIR application and read the news for a subscription rate of $3.45 per week.