Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Newsvine Launches – Phew!

Re: Newsvine Launches – Phew!

William T. Foxtrot — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:06:45 -0000

They're going to use ads soon. Supposedly you can earn money through ads if you write your own column. To me, this seems like it would have very broad appeal, once it catches on. Writing your own "column" is like having a blog only much simpler, for people who have opinions they'd like to share but don't want to have to go through the trouble of creating and promoting a blog. And earning money seems like it would be a huge incentive to join as well. I think if they work a few of the kinks out, this might really be a hit.

Re: Newsvine Launches – Phew!

Cal Evans — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:58:43 -0000

Mark,

Nothing wrong with targeting geeks if you admit that. /. has been doing it for years. (Poorly of late, but they have been doing it.)

But I disagree with you. As a geek, I have very little interest in newsvine. The front page looks like a newspaper. Great for people looking for old-media paradigms but it's not how I like my news. The stories are a wide variety of topics, again like a newspaper. I prefer focused sites. I read this and techcrunch for my daily dose of Web 2.0, /. for my dupes and TheReg for my geeky humor. if I want world news I generally go to foxnews.com or news.google.com. So I'm not sure why this only attracts geeks.

As a discussion site, the Jury is still out on that. Right now it looks like it's been 'mashabled' (masshed?) so many people read about it here and have gone to it that it's not even loading fully. So I'll wait till things slow down before I can truly test their interface.

IMHO, YMMV, etc...
=C=

Re: Newsvine Launches – Phew!

Mark Devlin — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 10:18:37 -0000

Newsvine is yet another example of a news site that appeals to geeks only. Its appeal to a mass audience is limited, not expanded, by its emphasis on high-levels of user paticipation and cool design over basic news presentation. IMHO the front page is awful, with a poor selection of stories, and too much room taken up by graphics. I wonder what the business model is - I don't see any advertising on the site.

BTW, my site, Crisscross, has let readers comment directly under newsfeeds since 2000. It's hardly an innovation.