“TimesPeople is a new way to discover what other readers find interesting on our site — and to make recommendations of your own.”

Sounds cool! But is it?

What I like:

1. Browser Integration
It works seamlessly with Firefox 3, embedding a narrow toolbar at the top of nytimes.com. To me, this is a great method for incorporating social networking and sharing into any site. Make it prominent and accessible from every page without getting in the way.

2. A Newspaper (an old one, at that) Trying Something New
It’s something that promotes user engagement with the site and each other, and I think that’s paramount for news organizations who want to thrive.

A few suggestions:

1. Offer Better People Search
Right now you can only search by name. Why not search by topic and city? I’m finding it’s really hard start building out my contacts list. A “recommended” friends list based on similarities in sharing habits would also be nice.

2. Build a City Center
The main TimesPeople Web site should include most recommended items in various news categories and media (slideshows, video, etc.). You could also feature users, perhaps some celebs? In general, I’m looking for some place to browse everyone’s activity. Make it resemble a busy market.

3. Make Adding Content and Commenting Easy
It’s not very clear or obvious (which it should be) how to add a story. I had to scroll down to the bottom of a blog post I was viewing and click “Share,” revealing a generic “Recommend” link. Had I not visited the FAQs, I never would’ve figured this out. I should get a big fat add link and icon in my TimesPeople toolbar at the top of the page. Also, it’d be nice if I could comment on links I’m posting. Why am I recommending a particular story or multimedia piece?

4. Offer More Robust Profiles
This will probably come as the service matures, but it’d be nice if I could link up my Web site, my Twitter account, Facebook profile, etc. Also, a user profile page could server as a personalized feed reader, where I could add and view stories from specific topics or writers from the Times.

There’s a lot of potential here and I commend the Times for trying something like this.

Feel free to check out my feed and add me as a contact.

Update: You can also check out a video interview with some of The Times developers produced by beet.tv.

Here goes:

1 Developer
The developer should be a PHP Harry Potter, with a mastery of Wordpress and/or Drupal. It’d also be nice if this person had some Python chops and had some experience building web applications on Django. They should also have some experience using and managing databases. Some JavaScript skills wouldn’t hurt either. You won’t need a server administrator starting off, but the developer should also have some experience managing a hosting environment. Taped glasses would be optional, but some sort of geeky paraphernalia would be preferred.

1 Bad-Mother Designer
Far too many non-profit and community news startups suck in terms of presenting their content. You need to have a brand and it needs to look professional or hip or both. This person understands web usability and how to build a Web site that’s easy to navigate. This person is also experienced in theming in Wordpress and/or Drupal, having a scary-deep knowledge of XTHML and CSS. The designer should have a lot of experience with the Adobe Creative Suite and be able to produce graphics and ads for print and web. Experience using Flash services and plugins is a big plus.

3 Reporters
Each reporter should first and foremost be a solid journalist and have a hunger for practicing the craft. Second, they should be obsessive compulsive about learning. Part of being an inquisitive journalist is learning new techniques for documenting a story. I would worry more about getting extremely motivated people than candidates with specific technical skills. At the same time, I would try and get a least one candidate who has a really solid base taking video, photos and audio.

1 Editor/Customer Service Representative/Accountant/Evangelist/Cheerleader
The editor will work the most and set a high morale for the organization on a daily basis. It would not be an easy job, but it would sure be one hell of an exciting challenge.

This person would:

• Listen and respond to customer questions, problems and suggestions
• Edit and fact-check stories
• Serve as the spokesperson for the organization
• Organize coverage of planned events and stories
• Update and manage social networking sites
• Track expenses and revenues
• Keep an eye on the web/newswires
• What else??

The First Two Weeks
I would spend the first two weeks running a team and skill-building boot camp. Each person would lead sessions in their area of expertise. This would help build solidarity on the team and a good understanding of roles and workflow. How can we compliment each other? What are our strengths and weaknesses?

And I would do what every good solider does before heading into battle: field exercises. Take your team out on photo-walks, video-walks, audio-walks and get them familiar with how the equipment operates in the field. Better they make mistakes when the cost of screwing up is negligible.

I’d also incorporate social events (e.g. share a brewskie or two) and print team t-shirts. Do not underestimate the power of the t-shirt.

I would take at least one entire day a month to schedule a day for training, brainstorming and relaxing.

Why Start So Small?
It’s easier to find 6 really talented people than it is to find 12 right off the bat. Come on, you don’t even have a reputation to help attract people yet.

Start small and farm out what you can. There are a lot of free or cheap web services that can help boost your team’s productivity and save valuable hours. Start with a big staff (10 or more) and you’ve essentially tied yourself to the tracks already. There’s no need to accumulate that kind of debt and it’s important to keep your overhead low. All you really need is cheap office space with reliable Internet service.

A large media organization could easily adopt this model to form an internal startup. In fact, I wish they would do this more often. Generally, big news organizations that rely on centralized IT fail to utilize emerging technologies fast enough. The “guys at HQ” tend to be barriers, not an empowering force.

It’s extremely difficult to deploy and troubleshoot technologies across multiple TV stations or newspapers. Not only that, but it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the dozens, if not hundreds, of differing feature requests coming from each market. “We need this to do that.” The response sure as hell better not be “Get in line.” There’s simply no time to wait.

Questions I Have
One thing I’m unsure about is whether it makes sense to establish the focus/niche of the startup before making the first hires, or involving them in the process? Does anyone have any thoughts?

What would you do to build momentum in the first 6 months?

Would you pay everyone equally? I would tend to pay the developer and designer more, but I’m definitely biased.

What about creating a rotating Editorship between 4 reporters (e.g. a 1-week term)? This might help prevent people from burning out and also spread power and responsibility.

According to the New York Times, the AP is going all 2.0 on your backsides. It is a little ironic though that the AP’s multimedia wire service ASAP closed up shop on October 31.

But then again, maybe it isn’t ironic. Maybe they learned from their mistakes and are ready to make another go at it. One can only hope. I am a fan of non-profit news organizations so I hope they find a model that works. A good start might be revamping their 1.0 Web site that is still built with (oh the horror) tables.

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