One New York Times Website Trick You May Not Know About
This is a guest post by Aseem Kishore, a technology enthusiast and lead blogger for Online-Tech-Tips.
I get my daily news from multiple sources, and my favourite online news source is the New York Times simply because it has the most well-written and engaging articles. Also, they cover just about every topic under the sun in great detail.
The New York Times is not only a great way to get news, it’s also a great learning tool. You can do everything from reading product reviews of digital cameras from CNET to researching stocks and mutual funds. You can also find jobs, find real estate, and look for new and used cars!
However, there is one feature of the New York Times Website that I just love. It’s is probably the most useful out of all the features on the site. So what is this great feature, you ask?
Go to the New York Times website and click on any article to read it. Now read it until you hit word that you don’t know or understand. If you want to get more information on that word, simply double-click on it! Yes that’s it! You can get the definition of any word by just double-clicking on it. That’s probably the neatest feature ever!
Once you double-click on a word, a pop-up window will appear that automatically passes that variable to a search query against Answers.com/Reference. You get the dictionary definition always, and depending on the term, you will get other information that is related.
For example, I double clicked on the word synapses and I got a pop up with a dictionary definition along with links to jump to the Columbia Encyclopedia entry for the word, a Science dictionary and Medical dictionary definition also! Now that’s cool!
Double clicking on a different word will pull up different resources, along with the definition. For a tech person like me, this is a great use of newer web technologies.
Get personal computing tips, tech news, software reviews and more by subscribing to Aseem’s blog at Online-Tech-Tips.com.
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That’s cool! Looks like the NYT is giving their readers a quick way to improve their vocab while reading news.
Syahid A.
2 May 08 at 9:03 am
Syahid, that’s exactly what I said when I did it the first time!! All news and research sites should have a feature like this. I wonder how they did it though!
Aseem Kishore
2 May 08 at 9:05 am
Yep, I’d love to see more news sites embracing new web 2.0 stuff. The BBC, for instance, seems to be improving their site these days. There’s a start page on the BBC website where you can add modules customize according to your interests.
Can only wish more news sites follow. Most of them are trying to improve though.
Shankar Ganesh
2 May 08 at 9:15 am
I think this feature can be implemented in all websites, there is a plugin or code for it. I had tried it on my blog last year.
Nirmal
2 May 08 at 12:30 pm
That’s great.
I love it.
It’s always nice to have a handy-quick-reference
Aravind
2 May 08 at 12:57 pm
I think they are using the linking method.. But extensive each word linking is really tough i guess.
They must have spent millions of that!
Rockstar Sid
2 May 08 at 3:19 pm
Interesting. Never knew about this.
Haris
2 May 08 at 7:04 pm
[...] one of my friend Aseem has written an article on KillerTechTips where he has mentioned about a feature in Newyork times by which you can get the meaning of any [...]
Enable Word meanings on Double click
2 May 08 at 10:58 pm
@Aseem,
I have written about how to enable this feature on any website, only few lines of code.
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2008/05/02/how-to-enable-answertips-on-your-blog/
Nirmal
2 May 08 at 11:04 pm
For Firefox users there’s an add-on that will add a similar function so you can use it on any website..
http://www.answers.com/main/firefox_plugins.jsp
Hanish
3 May 08 at 9:56 am
This is good. I should start checking out New york times
Madhur Kapoor
3 May 08 at 5:14 pm
It is probably achieved using a JavaScript file or function…Does look neat indeed.
Nice to see you here, Aseem.
Sumesh
3 May 08 at 5:16 pm
Sumesh, good to be here too! I’ve been working on utilizing time better, so I can stay in touch with the tech community. Full time job, family, and blogging is tough!
Aseem Kishore
3 May 08 at 11:09 pm
Use the firefox plug in “hyperwords” and get more that just
the meaning of the word. Just right click the word and select from the menu in any website.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1941
arun
5 May 08 at 10:48 am
@Arun: Yep I love that extension and I’ve used it on Firefox 2. But it’s not compatible with Firefox 3 Beta 5 at the moment, and since I’m using it, I need to wait
Shankar Ganesh
5 May 08 at 11:22 am
We released a website in partnership with PR Newswire (United Media) using a similar technology we filed a patent on a while ago. We have a news site called http://www.tipmynews.com and recently we rolled two iPhone applications that use the technology, http://www.tipmyphone.com and http://www.tipmynews.com/iphone
We are in the process of rolling additional apps. You will find that our technology is superior to what the NY TImes is doing because we allow you to search ANY Internet domain including the NY TImes or even your own Website.
We did a sit down with a New York TImes owned news paper and some of their people many months ago. I guess they liked the idea…
Our technology should work on any browser, BTW.
Check it out.
Dave Lalande
6 May 08 at 6:49 am
Dave, it’s pretty cool…but it’s very annoying…for some reason every word in the entire article is a link. The New York Times feature is much more subtle and a lot less in your face. I like the whole idea of using any site you want, but the entire post or article being converted into a link is definitely not something I would use.
Aseem Kishore
6 May 08 at 11:01 am
[...] Aseem kishore tells that why he loves new york times at Killer Tech [...]
Link attack on fellow bloggers! | ReviewSaurus - The Techie Dino!
6 May 08 at 6:38 pm
Excellent tip Aseem. I just blogged about it at http://www.techdreams.org/2008/05/new-york-times-articles-pop-up-word.html
Gopinath M
7 May 08 at 2:10 am
[...] back to the app, did anyone happen to upon Killer Tech Tips’ post about Thiings you didn’t know about the New York Times? If you didn’t you might want to read it. It sounds a lot like TIPS but just for their [...]
TIP iPhone Press Releases or TIPR has a twist « A Mind’s Diet
7 May 08 at 10:40 pm
Here are the facts and what is really annoying about this new linking technology currently being used on the New York Times, and CBS news webites – It does not work.
The New York Times and CBS news were sold an old clunky java script that does not work at all on PDA’s, Apple IPhone, Blackberries and chokes on most web browsers giving bizarre results!
A real programmer would write this code via a inline compiler not a web 1.0 unstable java.
The only in line text technology that works on moible phones and most web browsers is TIPP, the only in line technolgy that allows you to pick your search source on the fly is TIPP, the only in line text technology that allows you to convert ANY WEB SITE to a in line text site is TIPP.
street reporter
Sharla McBride
9 May 08 at 5:42 am
Congratz on hitting 2k subscribers, Shankar…
Finally
Sumesh from Blog Creativity
10 May 08 at 9:08 am
@Sumesh: Yep, thanks
Shankar Ganesh
10 May 08 at 9:11 am
Great find! I will use this daily.
Warm geeky regards,
Karl “TheAdmiN” Gechlik
AskTheAdmin | Karl Gechlik
12 May 08 at 7:09 pm
Interesting information.Thanks.
Tweakwindows
16 Nov 08 at 12:06 am