The Buzz Bin

The New York Times found a way for their online readers to engage with one another through TimesPeople. The new social network allows readers to share stories through article recommendations, bookmark articles and interact with fellow NYTimes.com readers.

TimesPeople features a toolbar where readers can view their recent activity, manage their profile settings, and view the number of friends on the network. The toolbar offers readers the opportunity to link TimesPeople to their Facebook accounts and import email contacts (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Hotmail) to expand their network.

The TimesPeople page provides readers with their activity, the general activity of the whole network (Live Snapshot), a newsfeed, and a list of fellow readers who follow them and vice versa. The “Find & Add People” let readers add more people to their network (just like searching for friends on Facebook). Concerned about privacy? Readers can also change their privacy settings for sharing articles on and off.

Buzz Meter Ranking: 4 out of 4 Buzz Bees

Positive: This free social network is simple and easy for users to comprehend. I think it’s a good first step for people who want to engage with the online community, but don’t know how. TimesPeople may include a feature for readers to add notes to their recommendations – further engaging their readers to converse with one another.

Negative: TimesPeople is exclusive to news from NYTimes.com –limiting the articles/blog posts to share.

Conclusion: TimesPeople provides NYTimes.com an edge over all the other online media. In a time where newspapers experience the pressure to follow the online media trend, NYTimes.com brings a whole new level of competition with a social network. Businesses are allowing social network usage in the office, acknowledging the trend and growth of social networks. Kudos to The New York Times for being one of the four “traditional media titans.”

UPDATE: Last week, OtherInbox was featured in the Buzz Meter. The OtherInbox team sent us 25 invitations for their private beta to share with our readers. Please try the service and let us know your thoughts: http://beta.otherinbox.com/signup/cc948.