Comments on: AnnArbor.com’s big scoop getting buried quick

By: Little Crocodile − Is River of News enough?

Little Crocodile − Is River of News enough? — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:58:58 +0000

[...] I predicted the front page of every news site would be a river. But now Joshua Benton at Nieman Lab asks, basically, is a River enough? Do you need some other structure to hang the news on? Yes, imho, you [...]

By: A reader of annarbor.com

A reader of annarbor.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:00:26 +0000

One thought on the “river” theme. I can’t help but think it’s a way to disguise the fact that there’s not much reporting coming out of the website.

If you were to just click on the “news” tab on the homepage, for instance, you’d see the same stories late into the morning as you did the night before.

So instead, the site throws a lot of stuff — news stories, sports features, a local person’s recap of a local baker appearing on TV show on cakes, no seriously — up on its home page’s “river of news” scroll.

No item has any more importance than the other. A story on big cuts to human services in the city is just as prominent on the “river” as a food blogger’s Labor Day recipies.

I don’t have a lot of time to poke through the corners of the site when I’m at work, so I just don’t find this compelling in trying to find what’s going on in the city.

I can only think this difficulty is by design because there’s simply less news content.

Very disappointed.

By: John Zhu

John Zhu — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:46:51 +0000

I wrote about my thoughts on the subject a few months back when NYT launched its river of news. Basically, my feeling is that the river of news works great for two types of news consumers/situations:

1. If you want to consume EVERYTHING.
2. If you want the latest on a particular topic that’s getting frequent updates (a 9/11 or Michael Jackson-type news story).

Outside of that, I feel like a river of news alone does little for the typical news consumer and that curation is very much necessary and desired.

You can read more of my thoughts on this at http://bit.ly/OMwmY

By: Is River of News enough? - Buffalo Sportsman of Western New York - Buffalo Sportsman

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:02:05 +0000

By: Purple Rose

Purple Rose — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:41:24 +0000

Speaking as a local reader of Ann Arbor.com, the “River of News” is NOT enough. Sure, a “breaking news” at the top would be nice, but more–I want it to look more like a newspaper–a la NYT, Free Press–NOT because I am “uncomfortable” with Facebook or the river type format, but because you can see more on the page. What you fail to mention, Josh, is that they have chosen a single column format and large print. It’s their choice, but it limits them to very few stories on the front page. Try to get to a “politics” story and it’s at least 3 clicks away. Also–Tony Dearing keeps promising “more is coming soon” but the fact is they launched very prematurely, and you really only get one chance to make a first impression. The first impression they have made in Ann Arbor, is not good.
Oh, and one more thing. They don’t have enough journalists (except maybe in sports) to do good journalistic work. The stories are short “news updates,” very little investigation. Even in a recent story about the death of a former mayor, the writer says that the mayor’s son said the mayor was elected in year X. I take from this that she didn’t have time to independently verify the information.

By: Joshua Benton

Joshua Benton — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:19:26 +0000

Hey jwoodruff: Of course you can do that. But what percentage of readers do? I’d wager single digits. The front page is the default state of a web site to the vast, vast majority of its readers.

By: jwoodruff

jwoodruff — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:17:31 +0000

click “most popular” instead of the chronological “today” view.

Problem solved.

Am I missing something?

By: Kevin Sablan

Kevin Sablan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:41:49 +0000

That "balance between recency, importance, and interestingness" is nearly unachievable, especially since a veteran in need of financial assistance might find the meeting preview more important than the "big story." One person's big story is another person's clutter. Some services, sites and networks can make it easier for people to find the news and information that they find important, but I think it will be long time before most people find, learn to use, and join those networks. The popular TechMeme site uses an algorithm to find, aggregate and rank technology news. But even founder Gabe Rivera understands that pure automation "doesn't quite work." As a matter of fact, they hired a human editor last year and recently posted another opening for an editorial position. The balance that you identify is a holy grail for both news sites (content creators, aggregators and networks) and the individuals they serve. Sites must listen and learn from the actions of their users, and then apply that knowledge to deliver news that its audience will find recent, important and interesting.

By: Ben Cohen

Ben Cohen — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:23:11 +0000

Given this post, I went back and read over my interview with Tony Dearing, chief content officer of AnnArbor.com. We did talk about how the site would differentiate between major scoops and stories about book tours, so I thought it was worth reiterating his response: “As we got closer to the launch, we realized that if there was going to be a launch, there were going to be some things that we wanted that would come a few weeks after launch instead of on launch. We certainly want and are planning for when you get the big story and want major display and screaming headline and links and sidebars and dominant art — there will be things that we want to treat that way. That capability is being finished now and will be available shortly. We’re hoping it’s available before the first big story like that.” Well, maybe the next one.

By: Patrick Donnelly

Patrick Donnelly — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:43:07 +0000

They’ve got to find a way to update the story hourly, even if the new info seems relatively inconsequential. Failing that, a static Top Story box would do the trick, with the rest of the feed changing chronologically.

By: Ian Duncan

Ian Duncan — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:56:12 +0000

Even if they just did something like the styling of the adverts they could stick to the pure chronological approach but give big stories a little bit extra prominence wherever they end up on the page.