1

By David Rothman

NY Times Mobile siteThe New York Times’ new mobile site shows that the newspaper Gets It. Along the way, e-books could benefit since Manhattan is Publishing Central for the big houses, and the site will help the locals get used to the idea of reading on a small screen.

On the just-launched Times site, you first see the most recent news of the day but can easily drill down to your favorite sections of the newspaper. From the announcement:

“Providing a similar navigation to the Web site, the NYTimes.com mobile site provides a version of NYTimes.com that is easily read and navigated on mobile phones. The site is not dependent on carriers. Any consumer who has a Web-enabled phone and pays for a Web data plan will be able to access the mobile site.”

In fact, the free Times site displayed beautifully on my Palm TX PDA in both the landscape and portrait modes, and I could easily take advantage of my Times Select subscription for the extras. You bet I appreciated the “open” approach. How ironic that Microsoft, notorious for associating its e-book reader with its favorite OS, is running ads on the new Times site.

The Times site is great news for the e-book world no matter what readers are involved. The more people accustom themselves to reading articles on PDAs, the easier will be the transition to entire books. For those who complain of the limits of the PDA screens—well, you can start out just reading chapters while waiting in the doctor’s office or whatever.

But back to the New York Times site. Does this mean we’ll soon see WiFi on New York subways or at least commuter trains? Oh, and there’s one more angle. Ads in the electronic edition would presumably cost far, far less than those in pulped-wood Times. New possibilities for publishers advertising in the Times book supplement?

(Via JK.)

 
1