I am a huge fan of the New York Times web site and the more time I spend on it, the more pleasant surprises I see. Needless to say, the reporting is top notch as it has been historically. But specific to the web site: I think the design is perfect for their site. It is easy to read and conveys a lot of information quickly. On those days with big news, the site easily accommodates major headlines that conveys urgency and prominence.

But more importantly, nytimes.com takes advantage of being on the web by doing much more than just repurpose text and images. The site includes a ton of video, audio, slideshows and applications that are very informative and/or helpful. Here are a few of many standouts:

While I watch CNN for their analysis and their cool touchscreen maps, I come to the New York Times for their Delegate Maps. The county-by-county information is updated as quickly for the readers as it is for their own editors. It’s very cool.

Their audio and visual slideshows can be a lot of fun. Their writers are not always the most dynamic personalities but the audio certainly adds a good perspective.

This is a fun and simple application to see the Top Surnames in the US. The information design is terrific (larger fonts denote higher rank). My surname doesn’t make the Top 5,000 but my wife’s is in the Top 500.

This is another example of an information application that the New York Times has done well. This is an application to help you figure out if you are better off renting or buying. Depending on when you bought your house, you will be either like or hate its findings.

The New York Times spent several months with updates on Life After Katrina. The stories are nicely displayed here on this map.

And when the New York Times started publishing blogs of their own, I found them immediately useful.

Now, not all is perfect with the New York Times. In fact, they have probably my biggest pet peeve on the Web. If you click into a story off the front page and then double-click on any word or phrase, a pop-up window will appear that shows a “reference search” for that word or phrase. Now, I am a “clicker” by habit; I will just click on a web page for no reason whatsoever. On the nytimes web site, that means I am poppping up useless windows left and right. This is a bad attempt, or should I say dirty trick, on generating pageviews with ads.

But other than that (huge) nit, I find myself spending more time on the New York Times web site than ever before. Nicely done.