NY Times Reader Coming Out of Beta

New York Times set to begin charging for access to software which lets you view the newspaper electronically in all of its print style glory.

The New York Times looks to be getting ready to pull the free beta status off of their Times Reader product as they announced today it will become a subscription offering effective March 27. Times Reader is priced annually at $165 or monthly at $14.95, but is available to home-delivery subscribers at no additional cost.

The Times Reader product, said the newspaper, is a downloadable software application which lets readers view the New York Times newspaper electronically, online or offline, in a paginated format as opposed to scrolling down a Web page. The text in Times Reader is displayed in a format to fit the size and layout of a computer screen and enables readers to customize the display according to personal preferences. It also allows mobile users to synchronize their laptops, tablet PCs or ultra-mobile computing devices before getting on an airplane or a train and have available the latest New York Times content

Features of the Times Reader software include navigation of the day’s news through photography, a topic browsing tool, an article index, an offline archive of seven days, the ability to annotate articles and crosswords. New subscribers to Times Reader will be offered a 30-day free trial period upon registration.

“Times Reader combines the interactivity and immediacy of the Web with the portability of a newspaper,” said Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and general manager, NYTimes.com, in a statement. “The New York Times is committed to developing innovative new products, delivering high-quality journalism to readers in the format they prefer.”