The New MSNBC: TechnoBarf
I've felt somewhat dirty for using MSNBC as my primary news source on the Web. But when I'm on a Windows PC, there's just nothing more convenient than that automatic News Menu that scrolls through a bajillion headlines at once. Now they've added the "MSN Navigational Wrapper" around the existing layout and the whole thing's a mess. It's almost as bad as ESPN's site, whose address http://msn.espn.go.com is itself a litany of Portal Bloat. (Remember Disney's go.com grand portal strategy? I don't even know why they maintain that page. I just clicked there, and I think I was their first visitor in weeks.)
For this aesthetic assault on my sensibilities, I'll be doing my newsreading elsewhere. Google's beta news service is enticing, if its notion of editing by algorithm rather than human is a little creepy. But how can you resist a news service whose FAQ includes gems like:
- I just did a search, and I wasn't happy with the results. Who should feel my wrath?
- How could you leave out Lemur News Digest? How do I get it added?