SNS, kind of

NYTimes has implemented a new "service" called TimesPeople.  Not really much to see right now, but apparently you'll be allowed to "follow" readers and see what your friends are reading.  

This, to me, seems to be even more of a harbinger of saturation than the infant SNS.  Think about it this way...

There's already several ways to accomplish this end.  Hell, NYTimes itself allows you to send to individuals and post pages to Facebook, Digg, Delicious, etc...  I'm not convinced that this new application fills a need.  And I know, we've reached the point that people are now looking at applications replacing applications in the user sphere, but this NYTimes application should have a higher usability built in to it.  You can update from your e-mail server, but what about having a built in/automatic suggestion based on the entry page?  At the very least NYTimes should actually be set to initally import your "friends" based on past usage.  After all, the application is introduced to Times members, we wouldn't be too surprised to see that NYTimes has been doing some data mining now would we.