Wider format, most popular emailed/blogged/searched feature and a new horizontal drill-down navigation added with more prominent multimedia. Also a very smart ‘Today’s Paper’ feature that let’s you find articles as they are organized in the print edition – would like to see more scans of the printed pages there however.  Editor in chief’s letter to readers is here. Mytimes.com feature which is supposed to allow users to customize a page with both Times and other web site’s content is touted in the letter, but it has a ‘coming soon’ message when I visited it. Sounds like a custom RSS aggregator to me….

technorati tags: nytimes, redesign, rss

Movielink.com and CinemaNow.com both revealed today that they will now offer movies for download (to own or rent) simultaneously with their DVD release to stores. Reuters story here. The price point is a head-scratcher, though: $20-$30 for the ‘own the file’ of current DVD releases. With DVDs themselves selling for less than that, and the fact that with DRM in place users will not be able to burn these downloads to removable media, the value here is seriously undercut, IMHO. Unless you happen to have a spiffy Windows MCE or Viiv setup where you can watch these on your TV screen, $30 for a movie I can only watch on my 20" LCD in the home office (or perhaps on my Powerbook Tablet PC (no Mac support, sigh) is not a great value.  I’d much rather get the disc from Netflix or pick it up at BestBuy and watch it with the wife in 50 inches of glorious color.  And given the price point of full-length television shows currently selling on the iTunes store ($1.99), I would like to think that given Apple’s history with negotiating their music deals for the ITMS will allow them to cut a better deal on behalf of the consumer – and that their product strategy includes a simpler way of providing hardware that let’s us see these downloadable movies in HD-quality on our living room sets. A guy can hope, right?

technorati tags: DVD, ITMS, DRM, Movielink, CinemaNow

While some may find it hard to believe, I’m quite happy to not be involved in the coding, editing and (ahem) ‘quality control’ of the annual SI.com Swimsuit Edition. The NYTimes picked up on this year’s efforts, and goes into great detail on this much-heralded product launch tomorrow (on Valentines Day, ‘natch). The annual staple has grown to not only include the magaine itself, but videos for your iPod, AIM icons, mobile phone wallpapers, and a cross-country series of parties with Anheuser-Busch (which picked up this sponsorship after Miller bowed out recently). Not to mention a few hundred very nice photos on SI.com. Get ready, get set – now go make sure all those images are cropped correctly in three different size formats, the swimsuit credits are correct, and no one left off any thumbnail images for gallery 42 of 50! Believe me – stare at those pictures long enough, and you’ll grow hair where you don’t want it – or perhaps get tired of supermodels. Probably NOT the latter, though.

technorati tags: si, swimsuit, ipod, video, sports illustrated

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I was tagged and need to post my response (more examples of the Four Things meme here).

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:

1. Thrifty Hardware & Supply Company clerk – worked for my dad, doing fun things like working the pipe cutting machine and getting covered in the lubricating oil. I’d come home looking like I’d been in one of those Wesson-oil wrestling matches.
2. Waltham Camera & Stereo counter sales – back in college, I earned extra $$ working at this high-end stereo and photo store. We’d spend hours listening to our favorite music on these $25k systems, and I was able to buy all sorts of gear at cost. Heck, I still have some of the speakers I bought back in the day.
3. Photojournalist – I was a stringer for the AP during college, then a staff photographer and editor for the Savannah Morning News and The Augusta Chronicle. Amazing experiences during that time – from travelling with the U.N. to Sarajevo in ’92 to photographing the antics of the ill-fated ’86 Red Sox, to covering the darker side of my home town during the violent crack-gang violence in the early 90s. 
4. Turner Broadcasting – that would be my current job, and it’s been a blast, from the annual Swimsuit Edition for SI.com to iTV projects for CNN and the rest of our brands, it’s been a great experience. PS – Swimsuit 2006 launches on Valentines Day next week!

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. The Princess Bride
2. Local Hero
3. Rear Window
4. Monsters Inc.

Four TV shows I love to watch:

1. 24
2. Survivor (yeah, I know)
3. Curb Your Enthusiasm
4. Family Guy

Four places I’ve been on vacation:

1. Isla Mujeres, Mexico – wonderful small island off Cancun – peaceful and beautiful
2. Haifa, Israel – rather like Carmel, California. Went before the Intafada, when the only worries were rockets coming in from Lebanon
3. Volcano Village, Hawaii – among the many places we went on our honeymoon, by far the most magical
4. Highlands, NC – a great escape from Atlanta – wonderful hiking, amazing food and wine, and good geocaching!

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Toro!
2. Osso Bucco
3. Lobster, pretty much any way you serve it
4. Berries

Four websites I visit daily:

1. CNN.com
2. Digg.com
3. SI.com
4. HDBeat.com

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. The aforementioned Big Island of Hawaii
2. At home, with my wife and son
3. Savannah, GA (my hometown)
4. Boston (my adoptive hometown)

Four bloggers I am tagging:

1. Lee Clontz
2. 3Gs
3. Hollandtower
4. Boblog

technorati tags: four things, meme, tagged