The Un-Facebook: New York Times Launches TimesPeople Social Network Beta

From the moment you register with your existing New York Times log-in, you know you’re not on Facebook, MySpace, Ning, Linkedin, Bebo or any of today’s rather plebeian social networks.

Here’s the almost graceful greeting: The TimesPeople Team wishes you a pleasant experience.

The site then invites you to “Share and Discover the Best of NYTimes.com” by sharing articles, videos, blog posts, slideshows, comments, ratings and reviews of movies, restaurant and hotels. In other words, all that newfangled social stuff the grown-up media is yearning to make work.

It was a bit disheartening to search and discover NO FRIENDS were waiting to ping me on TimesPeople. However, it’s early on in this new network, with the launch just hours ago. Surely I won’t be alone here long, wanting fervently to share the latest article on Amy Winehouse or Bush in the Rose Garden.

Currently, TimesPeople is only a (easy and quick) beta release of a Firefox browser add-on. Later on, the public launch will work on all browsers without a plug-in.