Once more, with gusto. Please repeat after me:

I WILL start paying attention to how my business does social networking. I WILL take social networking more seriously.

The New York Times, a newspaper (and a company) known both for making opinion and expecting those of us who read theirs to talk it up blindly, have started making their reporters available for comment.

And not in an “e-mail Bob and maybe he’ll answer but I doubt it” kind of way. The Old Grey Lady now sends out a list of stories every day and asks people who receive it to call and ask for more information.

Big deal? You don’t receive that letter? Well, you can! Just follow The Communications Department at The New York Times on Twitter. Or heck . . . bypass their Twitter page and link directly to the daily release here.

There’s a bunch of business change here.

First, the New York Times opening their gates this way is huge; it’s just never much seemed to care about the outside world’s opinion before. And frankly, they’ve recently instituted another policy that suggests the opposite; if you comment on a blog post at The New York Times and include attribution for your comments you’ll likely not see your comment posted. Remember the C|Net Story?

I applaud the move, even with the problems. But speaking technically I can’t understand why A) that .PDF link is being used instead of a web page and B) why the files gets overwritten every morning when leaving the old files online as an archive carries so many SEO benefits.

I presume both issues will be addressed soon, by the way.

But regardless of how open The Times really is getting here their position is clear: The New York Times Understands That Social Networking Matters.

YOU understood that already, right?

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