[scott_s]

I find this interesting for several reasons:

1. They're not seeking equity. They're open to investing in a company, or becoming a customer. They say they're doing this as an experiment, and I believe them.

2. The NY Times is, I think, the most technology progressive entity of old media. I think their webpage is the best online newspaper (granted, that is America-centric). They consistently have excellent interactive visuals, their recent avalanche feature was amazing (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4950054), and their iPhone app is actually good.

3. Getting access to the experience and data at the NY Times could be enormously helpful for startups in media.

4. I actually pay for an NY Times subscription, so I'm hopeful that they'll end up doing something that will benefit them, and in turn, me as a reader.

[why-el]

Another technologically progressive entity I think is Al Jazeera English, especially their mobile app where you can watch the channel live and their nice integration with Youtube.

[danso]

To say that the NYT is the most tech progressive media entity is understating it...besides their vast array of web and mobile apps and forays into new story telling methods (the Avalanche story was a hit here)...they've hired tech stars such as Jeremy Ashkenas (CoffeeScript/Bacbkone) and Mike Bostock (D3) whose work benefits the online ecosystem as a whole, not just the media world, and they pour a fair amount of resources into open source projects and news data APIs: http://open.blogs.nytimes.com/

Of course it's to be expected that they have one of the more prominent digital departments among media companies, given their size. But I think it's a fair to argue they've gone way beyond just trying to put out a decent digital media project, just as other notable digital companies innovate and produce and share beyond their core selling products.