{"id":761,"date":"2007-07-25T11:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-25T09:40:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-06-06T10:23:14","modified_gmt":"2011-06-06T08:23:14","slug":"a-new-look-at-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/761-a-new-look-at-news.html","title":{"rendered":"A new look at news"},"content":{"rendered":"

My reading habits have changed dramatically in the past few years, thanks to Web feeds and social news sites. It used to be that the first thing I\u2019d do in the morning was read the day\u2019s newspapers. Now I prefer to open Mozilla Firefox, my Web browser, and scan the latest headlines using the program\u2019s \u201clive bookmarks\u201d feature.<\/p>\n

Live bookmarks are Firefox\u2019s implementation of Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a clever way of delivering the latest headlines from specified websites. In an instant, I scan the latest news from just about any local or international news site I choose without first having to click through to those websites\u2019 homepages. If a website doesn\u2019t support RSS, I tend not to visit it.<\/p>\n

Then I usually head off to Google News<\/a>, an automated news aggregator that trawls the world\u2019s news websites and posts the most popular stories to its entirely computer-generated homepage. That\u2019s neat but it gets better. Google News is fully customisable, allowing me to design my own front page based on keywords I select. If I\u2019m interested in the latest news on Robert Mugabe, I simply add it, using a keyword search, as a news category on my personalised homepage. Whenever I access Google News, it then provides me with links to the latest news stories, published around the world, about the Zimbabwean dictator.<\/p>\n

I can even tell Google News to deliver the latest headlines about Mugabe directly to my e-mail inbox. Or have them delivered using RSS to my live bookmarks in Firefox.<\/p>\n

The fact that I\u2019m receiving the news I want to read \u2014 not the news an editor thinks I want to read \u2014 has made me less inclined to read daily newspapers. I took flak earlier this year for suggesting that newspapers are living on borrowed time. I concede that print as a medium is not going away any time soon. But newspapers, especially generalist daily papers, have to retool themselves for an era when most of their readers will read them online.<\/p>\n

The Web is a vastly superior mechanism for delivering the type of content that newspapers publish. Daily newspapers in particular need to prepare for an era in which content is delivered not only on Web-connected PCs but also via Web feeds to cellphones and other portable devices.<\/p>\n

Another trend that has me really excited is the emergence of social news sites such as digg<\/a>, reddit and, locally, muti. These sites provide a way for consumers worldwide to dig up and share news articles, opinions and other items of interest with each other and vote on which items they like and dislike.<\/p>\n

The process leads to websites that are constantly updated with the headlines of the most popular articles as voted for by readers. Think of it as the consumer-generated newspaper. Often articles one simply wouldn\u2019t find in the morning newspaper make the homepages of social news sites \u2014 and for good reason: they make fascinating reading.<\/p>\n

Another interesting trend is the emergence of websites that carry user-generated and user-edited (\u201dwiki\u201d-style) news content. Locally, Johnnic Communications has been doing this for some time with reporter.co.za and there are also a number of international examples. However, I find the sites lack gravitas (so far, anyway) and, like Wikipedia, I\u2019m less inclined to trust them than I am major news sites which I know are produced by professional and experienced journalists.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to predict the ultimate impact that technology will have on journalism. What\u2019s clear is that, like the music business, the news business is being turned on its head by the Web.<\/p>\n

Comments<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Internet is changing the way people consume news. News aggregators and social news sites are changing the way millions of people glean news and information. Like the music industry before it, the news business is being transformed by the Web.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}