New York Times launches restaurant guide for the iPhone

The New York Times launched a new iPhone app today called The Scoop.

The Scoop is a guide to New York City’s restaurants, bars and events chosen by the newspaper’s staff. Users can check out NYT staff recommendations, check off places where they’ve been, and share what they’ve done with their friends. Oh, and users can also check-in to locations on Foursquare.

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The so-called old media is trying to figure out its place in the digital era. With the launch of Apple’s iPad, print giants like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have come out with digital editions, trying to evolve to keep up with the changing media landscape. The Scoop is for the New York Times another way of providing readers with hopefully relevant and engaging content—and the paper gives the application away as a free download for users, while getting revenue from selling ads for the app.

The Scoop offers a few things: The New York Times’ restaurant critic Sam Sifton has listed 50 of his favorite NYC restaurants, with regular updates, and the paper’s food editor Pete Wells shares his favorite bars, for instance. Users can find nearby recommendations based on their location and can share what they’re doing on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

While this is not huge innovation for the media house, it is an indication that the paper is trying to figure out which content can make the transition from print to mobile and how to monetize that content. The newspaper has come out with a few other apps for the iPhone: a selection of NYT stories chosen by the editors, NYT Real Estate, and an app for learning English.

The iPhone apps are free of charge, as is the “editors’ choice” app for the iPad, but the media house is reportedly working on a paid app for the iPad that could conceivably let readers access all of the Times’ digital content. But how much are people willing to pay for that?

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