New York Times Wants to Be the Pandora of News - Adam Clark Estes

More ripples rolling out from my breaking the story on Times People toolbar being discontinued without notice. A bunch of more diligent reporters contacted Marc Frons (why didn’t I do that?):

via AtlanticWire

The New York Times is beginning to roll out an experimental new approach to personalized news that the Poynter Institute compares to Pandora’s approach to suggesting music based on what users say they like. The paper is trying to provide a more social news experience that includes not only personalization but also a reader reputation system and new approach to commenting. So far, most of the new additions have been happening behind the scenes—rethinking how to do recommendations and tweaking algorithms. When the toolbar for TimesPeople, a simple social network launched in 2008, disappeared this week, Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman suspected something biggest was in store and reached out to chief technology officer Marc Frons who explained some upcoming features.

Features planned include active personalization, a reputation system, and more, better comments.

Hmmm. Not clear if the service is going to be limited to just NY Times articles or not. Imagine a NY Times social network — designed around curating, annotating, and sharing news — but which could start with posts from any source?

Re: NY Times Retires 'Times People' But Doesn't Actually Tell The Users

GOt a comment from Kristin Mason of the NY Times who clarifies what happened witj Times People:

Hi Stowe, we have removed the TimesPeople toolbar and TimesPeople recommend feature, but TimesPeople profile pages are still live. They can be found by going to www.nytimes.com/timespeople and then clicking on the “View my profile & activity” link in the left corner. In the coming months, we will be enhancing and expanding our community offerings across NYTimes.com, and TimesPeople profiles will be integrated into those offerings. In the meantime, we have a number of sharing options on the site. We apologize for any confusion, and we’re working to make sure that this information is available to other users as well.

Kristin Mason
Manager, Communication, The New York Times

I wonder if they will open up the network, so I can share materials from other sources? One issue with Times People was that inward focus. Secondly, I would like a richer curatorial capability, like finding stories than many of my connections have read, recommended, and commented on.

I look forward to seeing these new initiatives.

NY Times Retires ‘Times People’ But Doesn’t Actually Tell The Users

So, I finally got a response to my inquiries about Times People, the NY Times social news network:

via email

Dear Stowe Boyd,

Thank you for contacting NYTimes.com.

We apologize for the inconvenience, however, we are no longer supporting Times People and are in the process of fully removing it from NYTimes.com.

We hope this helps.

Regards,

Andrew Smith
NYTimes.com
Customer Service
www.nytimes.com/help

Uh, thanks. Any chance to offload my posts, contacts, and other data? I guess not. I had 1075ish followers and was following a few dozen, now inaccessible.

By the way, major news services. If you launch something like this to great fanfare (or even small fanfare) it makes sense to make some noise when you shut the service down, tell people why, share the stats, and the thinking about your decision.