In what seems to be a never-ending series of experiments with different ways of displaying the news — including open APIs and the new Times Reader 2.0 AIR app — the New York Times has launched what it is calling Times Wire, a feature that displays the most recent headlines from the paper in a “river of news” style. Readers can choose either “All News” or a customized “My News” feed that lets them pick categories such as business, arts, and sports. (There’s also a dedicated Business and Technology view.)

If this seems familiar, it’s because Dave Winer — the programming guru who helped develop the original RSS syndication standard (something The New York Times was an early supporter of) — came up with something very similar years ago: a stripped-down view of the paper, similar to an RSS feed. The NYT’s newest service apparently went live at some point on Monday night — I found it thanks to a tweet from Frederic Lardinois, a writer for ReadWriteWeb — and is due to be launched officially on Tuesday.

[One other note: If the idea of a “river of news” seems familiar, you can thank Twitter — which has done more to popularize the concept of a constantly flowing stream of information, complete with “permission” to dip in or out at any time. —Josh]