NYT ditches Times Extra. Opportunity missed
Today Times Extra from the New York Times is being shut down. Now this was a pretty unique feature on the New York Times site that brought third party content right into the homepage itself (see the green links in the screenshot). In my opinion an ambitious, forward thinking and adventurous move on the part of the Times. I'd even say a groundbreaking move. A move I believe had the right philosophies (recognizing they don't always have the best content), the right values (acknowledging that the Times is part of a broader social ecosystem online) and the wrong user experience (scanning, scrolling and reading was cumbersome). The problem quite simply was that the third party links seemed forced into the existing New York Times homepage. NY Times - if you're integrating third party content (and you should), do so with the same flair that you do everything else. And I'd argue, integrate social media content as well. This implementation was clunky. No wonder people didn't gravitate to it. Here's my suggestion - don't shut down Times Extra completely, rather redesign it from scratch or have someone else design it for you. You were onto something there.
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