Jeff Jarvis points to an interesting post by Chris Riley that compares the editor-controlled content on the BBC homepage to the content on the BBC Most Popular Now page, which is determined by usage patterns of site visitors. He found editors and users were in synch in the stories they chose 37% of the time.

Reading this reminded me to write a about the Most Popular feature on the New York Time’s website. I am not a voracious reader of the New York Times but like to check in on it every few days. I do this not to catch up on the “latest news” so much as to read some of the great long form pieces they churn out on a regular basis. I read the Times more like a magazine than a newspaper.

The Most Popular tool is a great way for me to pretty quickly find the most interesting articles to read. Look at some of the stories they are highlighting today:

• Gilded Paychecks: Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices – A story about how professionals such as doctors are pursuing profitable alternative career options.
• What It Takes to Make a Student – A long piece that looks at whether “teaching poor children to act more like middle-class children help close the education gap.”
• Holiday Books: 100 Notable Books of the Year – Great list of the best books so far this year.
• One Spoonful at a Time – A very moving article about a mother’s struggle to get her anorexic daughter healthy.
• ‘Yours Truly,’ the E-Variations – Article about the hidden meaning of sign offs in email messages.

To me, the Times homepage is less interesting. It features links to articles about the big international news stories the day (which I’ve already heard about elsewhere), a bunch of business stories and some regional stories I’m not interested in since I’m in DC.

The Most Popular feature isn’t perfect – there isn’t an RSS feed to subscribe to or a way to view the most popular stories by topic (I’d love to drill down further). But for me it is a great way to quickly discover interesting Times stories I would probably have missed otherwise. The fact is the readers of the the Times are pretty smart folks and do a great job of identifying interesting content.