Me, News and Newsvine
Eventhough I’m not as much a news junkie as a weather one, I can’t help but love Newsvine (a lovely name for such a site, don’t you think?).
What struck me first was its lovely, clean, CSS-based design. I had already approved its nice and minimal logo, which I love. And of course, the lovely shades of green. Green is a tricky colour, one would have thought that a site using so much of dark greens and grays would be boring to stare at. Wrong! It’s refreshing, and it gives you the feeling that you’re reading newspaper excerpts in an old library, with those old green lamps over your head.
Then it’s the functionalities : name one news application functionality that Newsvine does not support. Tags, blogs, real-time news contribution, everything. I already liked NowPublic.com (which recently had a redesign - still using tables, though) but Newsvine is another league all on its own.
Call me nitpicking, but there was a tiny thing I didn’t like : the hover effect on menu options. Don’t ask me why! It just makes me think that all of a sudden, the lovely gradient gray background disappeared, and a flat green one took its place. Boy, my fantasy is on its highs today.
All in all, after its recent public launch, Newsvine managed to fit in my already bloated daily surfing schedule. And that’s an achievement on its own!
March 16th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Hi Zaharenia,
We’re working on getting rid of those tables. I promise
Best,
Michael Tippett,
NowPublic.com
March 16th, 2006 at 8:36 pm
Ok so I’ve been raving about the vine since the beta and I promise not to do it again. But for me it was never the design that got me hooked. TBH for me it felt like an extension of M Davison’s blog theme
I expected more on the design aspect.
What did get me hooked was the amount of personalisation and interaction you can have with the site, the content variety and amount etc. Above all the fact that it’s like “our newsvine”. We make the content, they’re our opinions & columns & links, things that we the real people are interested and not what an editor thinks.
Plus the fact that your opinion really matters to the newsvine crew. They are also real. During the whole beta phase they took into consideration the users opinion more than any beta i’ve been part of.
over n out
March 16th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
@ Michael : I know you do, to be frank, I was kinda surprised with that. But I know you’ll eventually switch to a much lighter and compact CSS version.
@ acidsmile : I agree with it all, but the design thingie, I guess it’s subjective.
March 17th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
I too have nothing but kind words for Newsvine. It seems like a much more focused Digg to me and I think that’s what will make it shine.
I haven’t been too active on Newsvine - I’m hoping for the feature that will allow you to integrate a pre-existing blog into the Newsvine system. I barely have enough time to write for one blog, let alone two.
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:39 am
I have to admit that I got engaged for quite some time on newsvine. It’s interesting (but also irritating) to read all those discussions going on.. and really time consuming! :S