Among North American newspapers, the New York Times has been on the leading-edge when it comes to the Web. I was invited to try the new My Times service (it's in beta), which lets you personalize a news "portal" with NYT content, external news sources and blogs. My initial impression is it's "good, quite good" because it combines the NYT's first-rate content (news, politics, sports, technology, arts, science) with high-quality external content such as CNet, BusinessWeek, The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. You can even search for other content, which - much to my surprise - let me add my blog to My Times. To be honest, I'm not a big portal person even though I have My Yahoo and Google configured as start pages. That said, My Times is impressive enough to make me change my ways. My Times is a good example of how newspapers need to be pro-active and forward-thinking if they want to remain viable and vital - even an "institution" such as the NYT is not immune. See my post from yesterday for more thoughts on how newspapers need to embrace/adopt the Web.
Update: Richard McManus has an extensive post on the soon-to-be launched Times Reader service that's a must-read for anyone interested in the service.

Just in time for the VON conference in Boston (which has shifted its focus to video from voice), AOL's foray into the VoIP market is coming to an abrupt close in North America. According to Aswath, TotalTalk will be "terminated" on or about Nov. 30 in the U.S. In Canada, an AOL Canada spokesperson said the service will be terminated in October due to a "pretty challenging and competitive market". Andy Abramson believes that rather than look at AOL's decision as a failure, it's a recognition by the company it will do better in voice through its its AIM PhoneLine service. Andy makes a good point because the "traditional" VoIP market (isn't that a strange phrase) is crowded with Vonage, 8x8, SunRocket the cablecos and even carriers. For AOL, Yahoo, MSN and Google, it makes much more sense to go the IM route than go head to head with the large VoIP service providers.
Update: According to a comment, TotalTalk subscribers in Canada have been sent letters that the service will be shut down on or about Oct. 22.

Now that I've recovered from my recent camping "experience" at Sandbanks Provincial Park, here's wireless re-cap. For access, I used Bell Canada's Passport service (based on a Kyocera card), which was pretty good - certainly not blazing fast but it offered decent connectivity over Bell's 1xEV-DO network. I also blogged on a Blackberry 7250, which was fine although doing it by e-mail to Blogware didn't provide any way to use features such as hyperlinks or respond to comments. To be read blogs, I used Virtual Reach's Newsclip service, which is a sweet, little application. It's fast and easy to set up using a desktop interface. If you have a wireless device, and interested in reading blogs on the go, Newsclip is worth checking out.

The number of journalists spreading their wings to run their own Web start-ups continues to expand with news that SiliconBeat's Matt Marshall is leaving to start VentureBeat, which will focus on private companies and their investors. Matt joins journalists such as Om Malik, who have made the jump after enjoying considerable blogging success. Maybe this is another sign blogging can become a legitimate business opportunity for some people. Or perhaps it's a sign of renewed (ir)rational exurberance in Silicon Valley that has given folks the entrepreneurial bug again - a phenomena that popped up during the dot-com boom as well.