WashingtonPost.com launched MyPost yesterday afternoon. MyPost is a kind of social networking feature built around content from The Washington Post.
I was playing with it last night – here’s what I found:
Everyone who registers get a page, where they can post some basic profile information (name, photo, age, town, bio etc.). Every time you comment on an article or blog, or post an event or venue review, those are collected on your MyPost page. In addition, you can make “friends” with other washingtonpost.com readers and talk to them through the MyPost system. Below is an image of washingtonpost.com Editor Jim Brady’s page.
“MyPost isn't intended to be MySpace or another general social networking site, but a feature that will make washingtonpost.com more useful to you and others,” Karl Eisenhower wrote on the PostBlog. While it may make the newspaper’s site more useful if I’m wondering what my friends said about a certain restaurant or article, I can’t see this dramatically increasing the amount of time I spend on washingtonpost.com. Of course, I already spend a lot of time there since it’s our hometown paper.
Washingtonpost.com has built a number of new, topic-oriented discussion designed to integrate with MyPost, which may be interesting – a new take on forums and social networking, really.
It would be nice to have MyPost integrated fully with MyWashingtonPost, a separate site feature that allows site visitors to build a customized page with their selected headlines, weather, comics, horoscopes and other newspaper content. (Below is an image of my own MyWashingtonPost page.)
Though my login is the same for both features, there isn’t a link from my profile page on MyPost to get to MyWashingtonPost. For example, I can’t share my favorite comics, which I have saved on MyWashingtonPost on the MyPost page. With such similar names, those features should talk to each other more.
I’d also like to be able to see which articles I e-mailed to who – I do that a lot, and sometimes can’t remember if I e-mailed an article to a colleague.
Washingtonpost.com editors are saying they will add more features in the coming months. Learn more about the new feature from washingtonpost.com.
NYTimes Takes MyTimes Out of Private Beta
The New York Times has taken its MyTimes feature out of private beta so now anyone can play with it -- but it's still in beta. "A free personalization service, MyTimes lets you create your own page with easy-to-browse updates from The New York Times and other favorite sites and blogs from across the Web. Now you can easily read all that you like, in one central place," according to the sign-up/promo page.
So, unlike MyPost, which is largely limited to washingtonpost.com content, MyTimes is more open. The default page -- before the visitor customizes the content -- includes top stories from Yahoo! News and the BBC in addition to The New York Times. In addition, you can put some of your own RSS feeds in there, see what Times reporters' favorite Web sites are, include news headlines and links from competing organizations (The Washington Post's Slate.com, for example) and more. Even the crossword fits in there. It's kind of like a super-souped-up RSS reader.
But, few (if any) social networking features -- no "friends" or aggregated comments, for example.
On another note, is the "My" trend the new "i" (as in iPod, etc.)? And remember e-everything? I wonder what the next one will be...