This is pretty neat: the New York Times has put together a visualizer that geographically maps out NYTimes.com’s traffic over the course of a day. To make things even more interesting, the day they picked was June 25, 2009 —  the day Michael Jackson died. The flaring map to the left roughly captures the moment that TMZ.com reported his death.

The Times‘ Nick Bilton explains just what’s being visualized over on the Bits blog:

The circles indicate two things. First, the yellow circles represent readers coming to the main Web site from desktop or laptop computers, and the orange circles indicate readers using mobile phones to access our mobile site. Second, the size of the circles represents the number of readers at that moment in time. You can see the corresponding time stamp in the upper left corner of the videos.

Bilton’s full post on the significance of the map is worth the read.

A few notes: it’s no great surprise that the Times‘ readership is highly concentrated in the Northeast, but the large amount of black, empty space at the heart of the map stands out by contrast. Low population density combines with lower web connectivity combines what must be less love for the New York Times to produce a void.

The West Coast also has a rather less robust visual presence than one might expect, even taking the three-hour time difference into consideration. Also interesting: throughout the day, there’s a steady orange glow coming from the bottom middle of the map, around what appears to be Dallas. Who would’ve thought that so many D-towners are avid NYTimes.com mobile readers?

(via Bits)

Photo: Michael Benabib, 2008

Vivian Schiller is the president and CEO of National Public Radio, which she joined at the end of 2008 after seven years at The New York Times Co. During her tenure at the Times, where she was most recently the SVP and general manager of NYTimes.com, she oversaw a complete overhaul of the paper’s website and dismantled TimesSelect, an early attempt at charging for content online. Schiller’s leadership at NPR has also meant a redesigned website. With her experience at the premiere newspaper website and now at NPR, which she touts as the oldest pay model in broadcast, Schiller knows as much as anybody about online pay models. Earlier this week she came to New York to prove it, participating in a debate with Journalism Online founder Steve Brill — ”The Great Digital Debate: Free vs. Paid Content Online.” Now she answers our 5QQ — Five Quick Questions.

1. How Do You Get Your First News Of The Day?

I divide my affections equally between Morning Edition and The New York Times Online – Please don’t make me choose!

2. Either, Or (you gotta pick one!):

New York City or Washington, DC?

My two great loves — my family and my job — are in Washington, so this one’s easy. But I’m glad I get to New York as often as I do.

Follow-Up: Subway or Metro?

We are a two-hybrid family, so I drive my Prius in DC, but it’s subway all the way in NYC.

Morning Edition or Weekend Edition?

I never stop listening.

Ira Glass or Garrison Keillor?

Ira Glass, but only because his program connects with the journalist in me.

Sarah Palin or Tina Fey?

That’s too easy.

Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck

Sarah Palin

Spike Jonze or Maurice Sendak?

Depends on where the wild things are that day (or night).

Eco Canvas Tote (with your $60 donation to New York Public Radio, WNYC) Or Barbara Streisand’s “Love Is The Answer” CD ($100 Donation)?

Eco Tote – see ‘two-hybrid family’ above.

What’s The Biggest Story the Media Has Missed This Year? (Or Last Week):

Tough One. I’d have to say the job market. It’s not a sexy story, but I think the fact that so many college grads can’t find a job is a profound shift in THE American Dream.

4. Obligatory Twitter Question: Describe Yourself In 140 Characters Or Less (Hash Tag Optional!).

# Vivianschiller Can’t decide if she’s Mother, Wife, Daughter, Sister, Partner, Employee, Boss, Teacher, Student or Friend so tries to be all at once, to mixed results.

5. Are You Nervous or Excited About The Future Of Journalism? Why?

Excited. A golden age of journalism is going to emerge from the hellish years we are going through. I’m sure of it.

While the NY Times is not the first website to be afflicted by a virus-spreading advertisement, AllThingsDigital’s Peter Kafka says that one “generally have to travel farther down the Internet publishing food chain to find these kind of bogus ads–go hunting for porn and/or illegal downloads, for instance, and you’ll find plenty of this stuff.”

He goes on to :

But Web advertising is still a wild and woolly place, and this type of thing still plagues high-end publishers too. Sometimes it’s the fault of ad networks the publishers use to move their unsold inventory; sometimes the bogus ads are bought directly from the publishers themselves.

I’ve asked both the Times PR staff and ad tech team for additional information about the ads, but haven’t heard back yet. Still, you have to give the paper credit for flagging this on their front page at all.

Apart from the original note the NY Times has released no more information about the potential computer attacks that appear to be coming from their website.