A Little Extra Marks a Major Change at the NY Times
The New York Times has added a feature called Times Extra to its website. Khoi Vinh gives a nice rundown on his blog but what's really amazing about this is how this moves the Times closer to a fully exploiting the website as a medium. Basically, Times Extra adds related links to certain stories, and many of those links come from the Times' competitors. The image I've included below of a Times column shows stories from the New York Observer and The New York Post. I think this is huge. The paper of record has, in a small way, relinquished its claim to the exclusive attention of its audience and accepted that all content on the web is connected no matter where it comes from. Web content succeeds not only by what it says but by how reveals other content. This is what makes the web unique: it's not about text, or images or even video – it's about links. Good to see the Times shifting to accept this reality.
