Writeside Review: TimesFax

TimesFax—from the Pages of The New York Times

America's most prestigious paper takes a first step on the Web.

TimesFax is an interesting anomaly. It is an interim Internet solution, in that the New York Times will launch a more comprehensive Web site this fall and is also involved with its New Century Network partners in creating a major, multi-newspaper Internet presence. TimesFax is brief (eight pages) and thus cannot offer anything near the depth or scope of the parent paper's coverage. Yet within its abbreviated context, this is the Times, right down to the day's lead editorial and the daily crossword. And because TimesFax uses the Adobe Acrobat portable document format—Adobe's Acrobat Reader must be installed on your machine—rather than HTML for its pages, it even looks like the Times. Note, though, that this visual consistency is achieved by sacrificing interactivity—there are no hyperlinks.

TimesFax is sent in its printed form (i.e., via fax) to overseas business travelers and U.S. Navy personnel. Including the Internet distribution, it claims to reach 150,000 readers per day. It would be interesting to see the circulation breakout; in all probability, the majority of TimesFax readers encounter it on the Web these days.

This abbreviated version of the Times does an excellent job of providing concise summaries of the important events of the day, across several news categories. For those who want an Internet news digest, TimesFax is hard to beat. But it is incongruous that the "newspaper of record" offers capsulized news over the Net; already, there are several news organizations on the Web providing more comprehensive coverage.

Presumably the Times will expand its coverage with the opening of the new site. @times, the paper's offering on America Online, can help show TimesFax the way—it frequently includes reporting that has been omitted from the print edition and seems to have a better grasp of how to serve up content for an online audience. It's also important that TimesFax provide more frequent coverage; a once-a-day news digest will not remain competitive on the Web much longer, if indeed it is now.

Given its size and stature, the New York Times should play an important role in setting the standards for Internet news delivery. TimesFax is overly conservative, but it is a respectable first step.

(Editor's Note: TimesFax has been relaunched as TimesDigest, available by e-mail, fax and password-protected Web site. Its editorial premise—to summarize each day's edition—remains the same.)

(Reviewed October 9, 1995)