Each of these widgets carries a distinct brand of navigation and sports a unique style, but all three are game-changers for any and all newspaper readers.
Time is a valuable commodity. I think these newly developed services will allow readers to access articles far more productively than previously imagined.
As noted by Andre Behrens, the NY Times Skimmer provides the reader with the feeling of “spreading out the paper on a table while eating brunch.” The grid of headlines and article stubs enables the reader to quickly peruse up to 30 available offerings at once.
The Skimmer also offers intuitive keyboard commands to help with efficiency. The space bar drops you down to the next article, and the shift-space will return you. The “s” (for section) key will scroll through each section that appears on the left of the page. When more than one page of articles is available, the right arrow key will slide the page to the next grid. If you hold down the “a” (for article) button, you can scroll with arrow keys to select a specific article.
There is one caveat; Sunday browsing is only compatible with Internet Explorer 7 and 8. Happily, all major browsers are compatible with the Skimmer for daily content.
The USA Today NewsDeck, is currently in beta. It furnishes all eight sections of the paper and appears on the home page. Each section provides four viewable headlines at once. With a swipe of the mouse you are able to scroll up or down for more headlines, then you click on the story and the article will appear.
USA Today also recently launched mobile iPhone and Android apps for its headline news; this application has received 1.8 million downloads, second only to the NY Times mobile app.
Finally, Google News Timeline serves as a news archive and current news source. The Website provides you with the ability to search and explore news archives. The researcher may select from news, events, people, ideas, quotes, magazines, newspapers, and other categories.
For current news, you may list any newspaper you are interested in reading. You can also list a specific source, like the Associated Press, or a network, such as CNBC. Streaming video is also supported. The interface offers eight sections, much like any newspaper.
The downside, at least from my perspective, is that headlines are generated from computer algorithms based on frequency of a story; there are no human editors involved.
Navigating Google News Timeline is easy enough; however, due to the massive volume of the database and options to select, the user should take ample time to become familiar with the widget.
To make the most of all these widgets, be sure your browser’s updated and that JavaScript is turned on.
So here’s the skinny: These widgets give readers access to a tremendous amount of organized and quality news. And the mobile apps only reinforce my conviction that you can get great news without a computer.
OK, I’m going to say it: I was wr__ g!
— Chris Poley has been a professional trader for more than 20 years.
Hi mathemagician, Interesting spin on these apps. I selected. Whether these will become streaming, referenced, mobile and fee based I'm sure will be in the offing.
But I think they are going to wind up trying to duplicate what the Kindle does. You can download and go through newspapers, magazines, etc. and skim headlines, jump to sections, or just page through the issue--like you normally do in the hardcopy editions.
Maybe they need to do something like my iTouch app Babelgum does: present a collage of entry points to articles that you can arrange and expand/contract at will to organize things.
That is an interesting (and fun) user interface for video feeds, and I think it could work just as well for stories/sections/columns. If you could set preferences as to what gets put into the collage, this is probably THE killer software app.
I wonder if the new Apple tablet will do something like this with the multi-touch screen interface?
I'm in the same boat. The widgets are a great angle on reading newspapers, but I like to take mine on the airplane, in the car, in bed on Sunday, and then line the birdcage with it. Haven't used my laptop in the birdcage yet.
Hi viboons, I'm glad you liked the title, I couldn't manage the "vi" but maybe down the road.
Yes, like I indicated, the widgets caught my attention, and for good reason. I think we are gaining the understanding of what print media can become on the Web.
I will always be a fan of "printed newspapers" because of my age and nostalgia. But I have grown to appreciate some of the new subtleties provided online these days.
Hey Chris. I like all the 3 widgets you discussed in your post, esp. the NY Times Skimmer. I think they're some very good examples of innovative user interface as a way forward for future Web. The Internet isn't just about content but also how info is managed and presented (that's what Google's in business for). Another thing I like about your post is the fact that the title has the word "Boon"...it's like my name...lol!
Hi Brian Newby, There can be no question that major newspapers garner a brand recognition that rival any industry, especially the Times and the Post, (both of which I subscribe to).
Cracking the code to make money online may become secondary when you think of all the 100's of city papers that have failed this year alone. With falling revenue from advertising and rising labor, transportation and general cost to maintain printing plants, many papers are being forced to use online formatting or just disappear altogether.
I understand where you are coming from, about [obits, local] content really not being serviceable online.
I think during this transitory period, the numbers will continue to grow for the defunct. But that said, the ones that survive and adapt, will over the course of time, come to understand what the readers frustration and concerns are, and put a product that addresses these issues.
The newspapers have no one to blame but themselves, and it’s for them to figure out how to monetize the online editions. I just think, this is a step in the right directions and only think this is the beginning.
Modza, I purposely selected newspapers [news sources] capable of supporting themselves. As many fragile newspapers continue to disappear under the weight of the old business model’s failings.
Agreed, there can be only so much an online presence can accomplish with their readership. We are truly watching this industry go through a complete overhaul of their product. And...I don’t mean content, but distribution and execution of that content.
Newspapers will continue to struggle to gain new readership and retain and convert the old readership to online format. I just think the widgets add a dimension to fuel further success.
I too appreciate the use of all two dimensions to display the news, and continue to look for new formats. For a while I liked the word cloud approach, and still do, but I'm also intrigued by approaches like the Visual Thesaurus -- related clusters of news items.
But none of these, as far as I noticed, dealt with the problem of business model. I think that's important. As satisfying as the newer formats are, news sites aren't really suffering from a lack of readership. Just a lack of money. And a lack of interaction with their readers -- which isn't accommodated very well in these widgets.
Well, Chris, for some of the reasons discussed here, I'm not so sure you were wrong. I do like the electronic editions that are pdfs but the proprietary-reader types (like USA Today) are just websites in disguise, and less responsive websites at that.
But I was just thinking today that the greatest advantage newspapers have, I think, is their brand. The New York Times, Washington Post, and each city's papers are as recognizable brand names as McDonald's and Wendy's.
Cracking the code to make money online with the brand name--a whole different story, especially when there is more paid content put into a paper (ads, obits) than content that the reader directly pays for.
I still think the escape hatch for newspapers will be to look beyond being online news and transform to an online "something else," even if that something else is simply an online quilt of several newspapers that online appear in one place--kind of a yyy.com powered by "local newspaper brand".
So, if there was a portal that competed with usatoday.com and that portal was the only pathway into online news from about 100 papers nationwide (no local site for your local paper), maybe the rules of the game could shift. That could be crazy talk, but something has to shift for them to survive--I think the pathway to the future for newspapers has to be more than an iPhone edition of their paper, for instance.
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