Are You a TimesPeople Person?

Formerly dubbed the “Gray Lady” for its staid appearance and style, The New York Times has just announced the beta version of TimesPeople, a new social network for readers of the newspaper. If you’re a marketing consultant, financial communications professional, PR practitioner or just a news junkie, you may want to check it out.

Unlike MySpace, it’s not a place to find a potential soulmate. TimesPeople is much more like Digg, in that it lets you share interesting things you find on the NYT website with others in the network. Users of TimesPeople can build up friends lists and can see a “news feed” of the stories their friends are recommending, sharing and discussing.

Currently available only as a Firefox browser add-on, when TimesPeople is formally launched, it will work with all web browsers.