Hmmm, what's this? It seems that the New York Times has gotten cold feet about letting its online counterpart serialize a novel. According to a ZDNet article, the reasons given are pretty much what you'd expect from the intentionally-stodgy and tradition-focused NYT: The deal's not dead yet, but it's definitely on hold, as the NYT rethinks the consequences of letting its web edition stray further and further from the mold set forth by its long-standing print edition. Apparently the suits at the Times feel that serializing a novel online would compromise the orthodox reputation of the famous newspaper.

We're not at all sure we buy that excuse for the sudden change in plans regarding the novel. The argument that the NYT web site shouldn't wander too far from the "orthodoxy" of the print edition seems a little bizarre to us, but then, we consider it a moral requirement never to read a newspaper that objects to a funnies section on principle. Considering that the dead tree edition only just added color recently, and also foisted the absurdly inappropriate slogan "All the News That's Fit to Print" onto the web edition, we think it's a poor move to restrict the web site to standards that already seem a little too stringent even for the print version.

But here's the fishy bit: the Times has rarely balked at letting the web edition experiment in the past, in order to stay relevant in the online medium. The web version has had comics, original articles, excerpts from novels, and other niceties to keep surfers interested. So why balk at an online novel serialization, which seems hardly more scandalous than allowing (gasp) comics? Well, it turns out that the novel is "loosely" based on the author's experiences at Apple Computer, and it includes two characters that bear a striking resemblance to Steve Jobs and John Sculley. Suppose that our favorite interim CEO made a few phone calls?