When I started at NYU, I said there was a project I was going to help with, but I couldn't talk about it. Now it's been announced. Here's the press release: 

NYTimes.com to Collaborate with New York University for 'Local' East Village Community Site. 

That's why I started an East Village aggregator, to follow what the local bloggers are writing about. The community site will incorporate work of NYU journalism students and members of the community. Further, there are computer science students from NYU participating in the project.  

My role is simply to help the students when I can, and of course to learn from the process myself. 

Jim Posner asks the question I would probably ask if I were outside this project -- what about the paywall. I've never asked the question myself. I assume this site is outside any NYT paywall. My own opinion is that the Times will never actually implement the paywall. That's the nice thing about being in academia, I can say what I believe. ">