Another local news aggregation play
Cory Bergman March 24th, 2008
You have Topix. Outside.in. And now Examiner.com in 59 cities…
But instead of just aggregation and AP, some Examiner.com sites have hired their own local reporters. “We are not another online newspaper,” explains an Examiner.com job posting. “(We’re) re-creating online news venues from the ground up — in terms of both technology and content delivery — to establish a national brand that is the destination of choice for local information.” StateofLocal has more on the new local news network. (Thanks, Z!)
7 Comments Add your own
1. Anonymous | March 24th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
On some level, aren’t sites like this simply RSS creations? (I admit, I’m just trying to stir up debate on the issue. But as a regular reader of Lost Remote, I’m very interested in what everyone has to say about this, even if I have to take a punch or two for the RSS remark.) I don’t see much Weather on these sites either.
2. Z | March 24th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
It’s a little hit or miss on the RSS at the moment. I check out the Louisville incarnation, and while some of the TV sites’ stories were current, at least one series of links was from Friday.
I don’t know if examiner.com has enough name recognition, though. I mean, if your local paper was called the Examiner, that’s one thing.
And yes, wherever they’re not hiring reporters, it’s a spiffy-looking RSS aggregator.
3. db | March 24th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
If it is a local news aggregator, then why are the top stories (those spanning horizontally across the top) all national? They’re the only ones with pictures, so they’re probably the first thing people look at.
Also, the “Local and Regional” stories all appear to be AP content, at least in my city. That’s a losing strategy: I can go almost anywhere and get that same stuff.
From top to bottom, it has that horrible feel of automation, like there isn’t a real human behind the bits and bytes.
4. Anonymous | March 25th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Not my cup of meat. Even Google can do this.
5. Fred | March 25th, 2008 at 7:32 am
yippee. You know what is neat about the examiner??? They spam the heck out of you. Well, not email spam. They deliver their paper to everyone in Northern Virginia so that they can claim that a high subscription rate. They just throw their paper everywhere. People HATE this. There is no obvious easy way to cancel the delivery. Oh yes, if you dig down far enough you can find a cancel delivery page - but this is opt out - otherwise you will get a pile of trash in your drive way. And if you are lucky they will will honor the unsubscribe request. I can tell you this is not always true. And if you are not home, you get a pile of unwanted papers in your driveway telling the world that you are not home. People hate the examiner. There are all sorts of signs in peoples driveways screaming “STOP DELIVERING THE EXAMINER.” No one reads the examiner; it goes straight into people’s garbage.
6. tdc | March 25th, 2008 at 8:42 am
hey fred, you wonder why the largest junkmailer out there just put an ex-us postal service exec on their board of directors?
and…
what’s wrong with rss?
i will admit the examiner efforts i looked at were so cold i had to put a sweater on, but it looks like they are doing some sort of hybrid in larger cities, so give them some rope. this approach, of course, will require letting the user go elsewhere for some information which should seal the deal for most tv execs; no chance in hell of that happening.
7. Teepee | April 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Check out www.examiner.com/denver, www.examiner.com/baltimore and www.examiner.com/seattle. This is where they are headed with all of their sites.
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