The New York Times has just launched the public beta of TimesPeople, a social networking platform for visitors to the site who want to share and recommend content. The new program, which only works on the Firefox browser, can be downloaded here

In addition to sharing within the Times site, the program allows users to push recommendations to Facebook, the iPhone and other platforms.

To find out about TimesPeople, Beet.TV visited the New York Times headquarters in Manhattan for an interview with senior software designers Derek Gottfrid and Nick Thuesen.

Joining us during the visit and handling the interviewing chores was our colleague Caroline "The Social" McCarthy of CNET News.com.   Caroline just published her report on TimesPeople.

— Andy Plesser

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