NYTimes.com Goes Big On Video

The New York Times Web site is getting into video in a big way -- literally, with a video player that is much larger than the previous version on its home page.

Over four times the size of the old player, the new Times Video module runs full-span on the home page, creating a more immersive viewing experience for visitors and highlighting the NYT’s growing portfolio of video journalism.

The new module centers on a main screen dominated by a single featured video. It also promotes other video offerings through a right-hand navigation bar with a number of tiles showing large stills from other video.

That's accompanied by text showing blurbs or headlines, the content category and the video’s length. Visitors can also click to travel to a new, dedicated Times Video page with more details about each video.

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The new video player also offers a much larger stage for advertisers’ video messages as well. Currently, every other piece of video content is preceded by a 30-second or 15-second ad, the shorter ads can’t be skipped.

The NYT has been introducing new digital products (and retiring some others) at a furious pace in recent months. In September, it launched a new Web site and daily email newsletter called “First Draft,” devoted to all things political, just in time for the upcoming midterm elections. Also in September, the newspaper unveiled a free Cooking app offering recipes, tips, and how-to guides drawn from its voluminous epicurean archives.

In April, the company launched another low-priced digital sub option, NYT Now, a new app that costs $8 for four weeks of access and gives subscribers access to the most important NYT content, including videos, infographics and slide shows, as well as content from around the Web.

Not all the new products make it. Earlier this month, the newspaper closed another new mobile app, NYT Opinion, because it failed to gain sufficient traction with subscribers.

1 comment about "NYTimes.com Goes Big On Video".
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  1. Krista Niess from MKT, October 28, 2014 at 12:01 a.m.

    I think this a very interesting avenue that the New York Times is taking with adding interactive videos for their newspapers. Today people have less time and sometimes getting news from a video seems a lot easier then reading an entire article. Times are changing and we are in a digital age, and with that people prefer to watch things on their computer and mobile devices rather than read. I don’t necessarily think that they is a good thing, I think you gain a new understanding when you take the time to read something verse watching and you absorb information in a more meaningful way when you read information. Knowing what is occurring in the news is extremely so for the new york times to take on share videos is a smart move, they are trying to reach a new audience that they may have not been able to reach before. I think that it is important for the New York Times to remember what their mission is and not stray to far from what they are known for and why so many people read them everyday. They need to find a platform in which they are able to gain more subscribers and be able to keep their loyal customers they currently have. This is was an very interesting article, only time will tell if this was the right move the New York Times.

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