News Aggregator Website

[teabag]

Hi guys, I'd like your opinions on the idea of creating a News aggregator website, covering World News, Local, Politics, Tech, Entertainment, Sport...


I've been thinking about this for almost a year now, as one thing I've noticed on news websites (which annoys me to bits) is not being able to comment on all articles.

The most controversial articles allow the Journalist to have his/her view without allowing the reader to comment or debate theirs! And I know this is a huge problem with online news websites. My question to you is, if my website could provide you with the same articles from your favourite Newspapers, but gave you the power to comment quickly and easily, would you use my site?

It's not a miraculous change to the existing news websites, but it is something that I see as a fix to an already existing model. Sometimes I read hardcore right/left wing articles and I want to say something, but the comment section is NEVER opened!

Thoughts?

 

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[JAJT]

Thoughts?

Ever been to reddit? digg? google news? fark?

How is yours going to be different/better?

 

[tafy]

I always read the business section of online newspapers but theres a lot of crap articles, maybe if you could handpick 5 good articles from selected sources each day? Not automated but could be useful if you get enough traffic. Or does this exist already?

 

[teabag]

Ever been to reddit? digg? google news? fark?

How is yours going to be different/better?

Yes I've been a long time user of Digg and know very well of reddit.

My news site will be similar to the existing newspaper websites, in my country.

The demographic the articles I will be retrieving from and the news websites are generally 28+ males and females who are interested in what's important and what is going on in our country, specifically politics.

Thats my target market. The difference in my site is, there is no news website that presents it self like smh.com.au & heraldsun.com.au (Australian news sites) and allows 24 hours commenting as well as the ability to rank up or down articles based on the publics opinion.

Not only that, but the major Australian newspapers limit users to reading 30 articles per month before they charge them, which is ridiculous. This site is completely free of access.

I always read the business section of online newspapers but theres a lot of crap articles, maybe if you could handpick 5 good articles from selected sources each day? Not automated but could be useful if you get enough traffic. Or does this exist already?

Hand picking is the way I was thinking, and it exists in your everyday news paper website. I used aggregator to get peoples attention

 

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[smarty]

i would never deal with something like this. news drive me crazy with all the bullshit in them. you could maybe create a browser plugin that people can install and which would appear on every website so they can comment. obviously only the people who have installed the plugin will see comments but you can do all sorts of things to make it a great experience for them, like showing how many people have seen their comment, how many people are currently reading the same page, etc. and then you can offer certain premium features for a totally uncensored experience, or simply display small ads from the plugin/extension itself.

P.S.: if you execute on this idea and it turns out to be a million dollar product, I will sue you on court for copying my idea and demand 50% of the company ownership, lol

 

[Nick]

Yes I've been a long time user of Digg and know very well of reddit.

I still don't see how your site is different from a social bookmarking site like digg or reddit where you can vote or comment on other websites articles.

Or do you imagine you will be able to copy / paste full articles from other news websites on your own site? Cause that won't last long, it's copyright infringement.

Not only that, but the major Australian newspapers limit users to reading 30 articles per month before they charge them, which is ridiculous. This site is completely free of access.

I can see how it might look ridiculous to you if your plan is to take other websites content and offer them for free, it is not so ridiculous when you are the one creating the articles and paying journalists to write them and etc...

 

[exige]

Well, he can build it by only quoting parts of the articles and linking back, or license the content from the Associated Press etc. There is a reason some of these news sites have been experimenting with paywalls though. There must be something in the news distribution agreements or some other reason comments are limited on select stories - I've noticed it on FoxNews for instance, it seems anything pulled in from the AP doesn't have a comment box. But, does anybody actually care enough about comments? And if they do why wouldn't they just use one of the existing alternatives?

you could maybe create a browser plugin that people can install and which would appear on every website so they can comment. obviously only the people who have installed the plugin will see comments but you can do all sorts of things to make it a great experience for them, like showing how many people have seen their comment, how many people are currently reading the same page, etc. and then you can offer certain premium features for a totally uncensored experience, or simply display small ads from the plugin/extension itself.

I believe folks have tried this already too. Social surfing browser add-ons, toolbars website owners can install in the site, etc.

 

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[johnp]

I think that one problem (among many) here is that any of the current news sites could do this. And more important, I'm sure there is a very good reason why they are not doing it.

Back in 2010 I came up with a feature idea for a social network. The feature was an organized news feed. The news feed would be broken down into a group of categories: social, academic, professional, photos, ads, and user defined. Each stream could be turned on and off based on the user's preferences.

A couple years later, Facebook releases almost this exact feature.

If I had built a business around that idea (if that's even possible) then FB would have killed it in a second, just like any news site could kill your feature idea off by implementing it themselves.

 

[DeletedUser2]

a curation site would work.

news from your point of view.
you curate a article, and allow comments on your site about it.
you give your opinion, or insight.

curation is different from aggregation. there are lots of RSS readers out there that people can use to aggregate.

Curate is the wave of the future I think.

Z

 

[johnp]

To continue...

features are easy to predict. It's easy to say that Digg could use this feature and Facebook can use that feature. But in reality, it's much harder to actually make this happen.

You need hard data that there is a need before you even build a feature. Then after you get the data, you should releasing to different subsets of your user base to see if the feature sticks.

It might make perfect sense in your head. But I would bet my dog on it that there is someone out there who would say that they would never use your feature.That shouldn't stop you, but it should make you think about it more..
just something to think about

 

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[teabag]

Thank you all for your advice and critique. It's definitely an idea which needs concrete data before making any moves. It most definitely is not fastlane. I purchased TMF a few days ago and only a few chapters in.

I think I'll digest that before I take on any new ideas!

 

[DeletedUser394]

Anything can be fastlane.

This is the first site that came to mind when you mentioned your idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report

Similar concept, run by only 2 people, and it's the 380th most popular site on the internet. The homepage is super spartan and hasn't changed much.. ever.

Not sure how much cash it's bringing in, but I'm guessing it's substantial.

Ties in to the curation vs aggregator thing.

 

[teabag]

Anything can be fastlane.

This is the first site that came to mind when you mentioned your idea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report

Similar concept, run by only 2 people, and it's the 380th most popular site on the internet. The homepage is super spartan and hasn't changed much.. ever.

Not sure how much cash it's bringing in, but I'm guessing it's substantial.

Ties in to the curation vs aggregator thing.

What an interesting site... From a first glance I can't even work out what's what. I'm amazed that it has so many clicks!

 

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[teabag]

This is amazing...

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/drudge-report-is-worth-2012-10

The site has 14.4 million readers per month, just short of the New York Times @ ~16 million readers per month.

I don't understand the attraction of this website and why people use it? Is it the simplicity of what the most popular websites are at the current time stacked onto one page for you to click on?

From a first glance, I thought the website had some html problems

 

[tafy]

Nice idea really!

1. Choose great stories from around the world
2. Write your own headline and maybe a quick into
3. Link to the original page

Value is that you must have great selection, this would be a manual job. And great tagline and quick description. Is there a website like this for fastlaners?