Newspaper turning in the web is no longer out of a promotional angle. it is now how they will survive into the future. this is something still hard to understand right now for most newspapers. but The New York Times has got the message. more because it is said that it now makes a tenth of the profit it once did at its highest point in history. this is because it is hard to compete with The Internet as whole and much less now with Social Messaging, Lifestreaming and Lifecasting being the new force of user generated content. content that includes breaking news and reports.
Just yesterday someone made a chronicle out of its experience in a Plane Crash via Twitter. this was then reported later and a good perspective on how fast a news like this spread would be that anything like this is usually reported by Social News Sites (30-60 minutes after the fact), then Blogs (90-180 minutes after), then TV news (4-6 hrs later) and that the very last it got reported by some newspapers (12hrs-days) after it happened.
Having that in mind. a good way to reinforce a newspaper content is by being able to share it online as a reinforcement of the newspaper name and brand along with the content itself.
So. having official New York Times Widgets and a Widget Generator is a good thing. right now they decided to start with the 5 most popular and let you generate your own widgets from NYT content beyond that.
This is a good initiative. but i wish it were fully open. since it requires you to be a NYT subscriber to get the goods. but i am sure that as Physical Sales of Newspapers touch a maximum low. possibly next year. all of this tool will be Open for all out of necessity as they should had been in the first place.
There is also a good How-To blog post to take advantage of this widgets by Jen Van Grove
