NYT.com Redesign

Still working out a few bugs I presume as some things don't work, but the site looks quite bloggy. A note from the paper here about the redesign a year in the works.

Our goal when we set out to redesign The Times Web site more than a year ago was to make experiencing The New York Times online simpler and more useful. We hope you conclude that we have done that on the new pages appearing for the first time this month.

We have expanded the page to take advantage of the larger monitors now used by the vast majority of our readers. We've improved the navigation throughout the site so that no matter what page you land on, you can easily dig deeper into other sections or use our multimedia.

We also wanted to give our readers a greater voice and sprinkle a little more serendipity around the site by providing prominent links to a list of most e-mailed and blogged articles, most searched for information and popular movies. A new tab at the top of the page takes you directly to all our most popular features.

I was quite intrigued by the "Most Blogged" category and I clicked over. They list all the articles, but not the blogs that link to them. What a crock of shit.

NYT.com has been the gold standard in webdesign, but times have changed quickly as they've patched things here and there, but now the Old Grey Lady has changed her clothes with the times.

I hope this editor's note ends up at the top of the "Most Blogged" list. Too bad you won't be able to see what people think of the note though. But maybe NYT.com doesn't care what they think, just that it's being linked to. Links mean traffic and traffic will drive their online ad sales. That's their ultimate concern, money.

Comments

[John]

If they listed the blogs, I'm sure they'd get lots of spam attacks looking for some free linkage. As a blogger, I'm sure you're well aware of all of the junk that's out there. And that's just a personal blog. Can you imagine what the NYT would get? I'm sure they'll figure out the best way to filter out what they don't want and possibly implement what you want down the line.

I don't see how you can say it's about money, as people were linking to NYT stuff before without the "Most Blogged" category. And I doubt people will start linking to stories because of the "Most Blogged" category.

[albert]

John-
Ever see what the Washington Post has done with Technorati? It's as easy as that. It's not just what *I* want, it's what *bloggers* want and I do think that I speak for more than just me in this case.

I didn't mean to imply that the "most blogged" section would create more links, but that they're only concerned with the actual linkage and therefore didn't bother to list where the links are coming from. They're only concerned with getting those inbound links which lead to traffic which translate into pageviews and those numbers are used to create CPM ad rates.

[upyernoz]

actually, they have been adding links to the end of their articles to blog posts that discuss them--at least they have for the past few months.

[albert]

they have, but very sporadically if at all. they did add a link to this post.

[sarah]

Ugly. Too little info and too many irrelevant photos. Maybe they think their readers can't read, thus all the BIG photos. I feel like I'm looking at the NY Times Kindergarden Edition.

[Patricia]

I LOVE the redesign! Congratulations. It looks like the New York Times... Elegant, Big, Nice.

[Peter]

Do a little more research, my friend. If you actually bother going to the article page, under the heading "related blogs" you'll find a list of blogs linking to that article. In fact, despite your slanderous rant, they are linking to you.

Yes, they are linking to you. That's how I got here. But, how did they choose which 6 blogs to list?

[albert]

yes, Peter and anon, they are linking to me, i've said that they are here in the comments. they link rediculously sporadically. they could easily adopt something like WaPo is doing with Technorati and pick up a shitload more and give them the linkback love they deserve.

[roseba]

I went to the list of "most blogged" articles. When I click on a link, a lot of articles do not show the list of blogs discussing the articles. It may be a bug.

[albert]

roseba- it's not a bug as far as i can see, it's them leaving out the blogs for the mostpart. yes, they *do* link, but it is only to a handful blogs on a handful of articles.. how they're choosing this handful i don't know. nor do i know if they'll expand this to all articles and all blogs. it could be a slow rollout, it could be selective through and through.