USAToday.com has been big in the blogosphere about its new redesign and social networking features. Following the change has been quite interesting. Here are some things I've noticed:
Comments are well thought out, insightful even. Even debates over controversial topics stay very civil. Comments have created a true forum for discussion. People are replying to each other multiple times.
The diggers are pissed...again. I realize that Digg came out with a revolutionary way to promote great stories but let's face it, the feature is easy to implement so why not? I remember the first blogging tool that lead the charge for mainstream blogging was greymatter from noahgrey.com. I don't remember Noah getting kudos for pioneering blogging. Why do people think that Digg is worth $160 million? What do they offer that others can't duplicate on sites that already provide the news?
A lot of people were pissed about the change. I read a ton of bitching by people who thought the new design and features were unnecessary. Do they realize that the new features are the vehicle for them to do all of their bitching? Why are people so afraid of change? USAToday became who they were for providing the news differently 25 years ago. Yes the page is loading slow, but they just released a MAJOR redesign with a slew of new features that is allowing them to call bullshit on articles that may be wrong in fact or biased.
The fact is, we cry and cry about news outlets filtering our media. USAToday.com is the first major news source that is helping us evolve into a society where discussion about important topics can flourish.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I definitely agree with you. My favorite site that often covers news topics is www.metafilter.com (They are really "best of the web" links, but often the posts are skewed toward tech news, politics and world news). It was started in 1999 and was basically one of the first blogs.
Anyway, what I love about the site is if a story is false, or misleading, or there is another side to the story that isn't being presented, the people on Metafilter will respond in the comments and dissect the story in front of your eyes. It is a type of interactive news when you have a variety of people with different opinions giving you their take on a story.
It's nice to see USAToday embracing this structure, but on the other hand, I'd like to see it done with more serious news web sites like CNN or NYtimes. I always think of USAToday as like a newspaper for kids. If they had a coloring page instead of a crossword puzzle I would not be surprised. Haha.
Anyway, this is my first time reading your blog, keep up the good work!
Just a note about your statement regarding digg. While I agree with you that there is nothing really special about digg that is worth anywhere near $160 million, the main factor on that valuation is their audience.
Like Fox buying myspace, a company could purchase digg, in essence buying its audience, and market their products and charge others to market to that audience. The would profit by building on the name digg built for itself.
Post a Comment