New York Times R&D lab, 2011
I find this demo deeply disturbing. Not its content per se but the fact that this is the product of the internal conversation the NYTimes is having about the future of news. The ideas here all cluster around personalization and output formats, which, to my mind, is exactly not what the NYTimes should be working on. They should be working on new techniques for news gathering: strategies for investigative reporting, analyzing and humanizing impenetrable news-generating fields like finance and legislation, etc. The NYTimes didn’t invent the newspaper. They’re not qualified to invent the next format for consuming news and information. And focusing there is a total loss of mission focus.
I know this is just a conceptual R&D demo and not something they will ever ship. And, in general, I’m heartened by the prospect that they’ve dug out of the defensive trench-mindset enough to have an R&D lab at all. However, I find what this demo reveals about their priorities and focus for the future highly disturbing.
