One New York Times Website Trick You May Not Know About
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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.
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24 Comments, Comment or Ping
Syahid A.
That’s cool! Looks like the NYT is giving their readers a quick way to improve their vocab while reading news.
May 2nd, 2008
Aseem Kishore
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!
May 2nd, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
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.
May 2nd, 2008
Nirmal
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.
May 2nd, 2008
Aravind
That’s great.
I love it.
It’s always nice to have a handy-quick-reference
May 2nd, 2008
Rockstar Sid
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!
May 2nd, 2008
Haris
Interesting. Never knew about this.
May 2nd, 2008
Nirmal
@Aseem,
I have written about how to enable this feature on any website, only few lines of code.
http://www.nirmaltv.com/2008/0.....your-blog/
May 2nd, 2008
Hanish
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
May 3rd, 2008
Madhur Kapoor
This is good. I should start checking out New york times
May 3rd, 2008
Sumesh
It is probably achieved using a JavaScript file or function…Does look neat indeed.
Nice to see you here, Aseem.
May 3rd, 2008
Aseem Kishore
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!
May 3rd, 2008
arun
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
May 5th, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
@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
May 5th, 2008
Dave Lalande
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.
May 6th, 2008
Aseem Kishore
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.
May 6th, 2008
Gopinath M
Excellent tip Aseem. I just blogged about it at http://www.techdreams.org/2008.....-word.html
May 7th, 2008
Sharla McBride
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
May 9th, 2008
Sumesh from Blog Creativity
Congratz on hitting 2k subscribers, Shankar…
Finally
May 10th, 2008
Shankar Ganesh
@Sumesh: Yep, thanks
May 10th, 2008
AskTheAdmin | Karl Gechlik
Great find! I will use this daily.
Warm geeky regards,
Karl “TheAdmiN” Gechlik
May 12th, 2008
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