The New York Times plans to set up a public beta site on which it can experiment and test its ideas and applications before they go live on the newspaper's website, AdAge.com reported. The beta initiative will begin in July or August, and will be called "Beta620," wherein 620 refers to the paper's street address on Eighth Avenue in New York.

The new platform will be an examination ground for The Times to study and understand the impact of its features on readers and advertisers before they are implemented, thereby facilitating more user involvement with its products, while eliminating the clutter of new products on its main site, according to a blog posted on MediaBistro.com.

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