Comments on: Newsvine Relaunches… Announcing Evergreen

By: Interesting: Newsvine » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Interesting: Newsvine » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 17:33:01 +0000

[...] head to create a personal newspaper and I think Newsvine might be the place to do it. They’ve redesigned many aspects of the site, most notably their front page, which is now customizable with modules, [...]

By: Sean S

Sean S — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Awesome, awesome, awesome! This is exactly what Newsvine needed! Very nice job, Mike (and team).

By: DamianKD

DamianKD — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Man, you guys are quick.

I just refreshed NV, saw the new design, then saw the release article.
Just a minute ago, Google Reader updated and showed this.

Isn’t technology great? :)

Love the new NV, BTW.
D

By: firsty

firsty — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

nice! very, very nice. and sweet etc.

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

All I can say is WOW! Didn’t see that coming. Great work.

By: Dan A

Dan A — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The difference is quite stunning, very nice upgrade with tons of value to Newsviners.

I am noticing a significant strain on the server, I had the images not loading in the ‘news in pictures’ module, and article requests timing out.

By: Aric

Aric — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Very nice Mike. Congrat’s to you and your team.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Looks like MSNBC has been busy too.
Glad to see that Newsvine is shaking things up.

So can I apply for an internship?
I’ll work for peanuts and beer.

By: Adam Hobson

Adam Hobson — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Figures, the day I am traveling and away from the Internet is the day newsvine gets a makeover.

Anyway, great job!

By: Manny Hernandez

Manny Hernandez — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Congrats on a fine job, Mike!

By: Dave Metcalf

Dave Metcalf — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The new design looks great! I am already finding it more readable for the way I like to check out news, especially the expanded layout.
And the Kelvin idea is hilarious!

By: gb

gb — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The weather module thinks I’m in Seattle… I’m going to take that as a sign that I need to get my ass up there.

I need to re-introduce regular newsvining into my life (kind of slacked off after it nearly got me fired last year) and this is a good catalyst.

By: Rex

Rex — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Okay, I’ve got an actual question (and Mike, you might be more qualified than anyone to answer this)….

Why are these two statements true? 1) When a mainstream media website redesigns, it is unequivocally despised by its audience. [Always.] 2) When a social media website redesigns, it is adored by its audience. [Almost always.]

Someone might try to say “because all media websites suck” and/or “because all social media websites are awesome,” but I don’t think we can possibly believe that’s true.

Is this because the audiences are different? The expectations? The difficulty? The organization? The goals?

(I ask this as someone who has designed both successful social media sites and very large mainstream media sites. And witnessed this phenomena over and over.)

By: Alexander Micek

Alexander Micek — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As the owner of a wide monitor, I really dig the four column presentation. Newsvine LIVE looks AWESOME scrolling away on the right side.

By: Mike D.

Mike D. — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

That is a great question, Rex. Probably worthy of turning into a post. Here are my initial bullets (and I totally agree with you) –

1. The audiences of many mainstream media sites are there almost automatically and not so much out of choice. A lot of people who go to ESPN.com go there because they watch ESPN TV. A lot of people go to MSN because their browser hardcoded it as their start page. Visitors to social media sites are there because they’ve expressly decided to be there. They already like it a lot.

2. Sites run by smaller companies may be more in touch with their audiences than sites run by larger companies. I’m the CEO of Newsvine and every time someone does so much as report a spacing bug on our site, I know about it automatically, via automated email. When all of these user emails seep into your collective unconscious over the course of months, you already know your marching orders come redesign time.

3. Bigger companies often *can’t* do all they want to do with their sites for political, technological, and other reasons. They are launching with the knowledge internally that only it weren’t for legacy systems, they would be free to do a lot more.

4. Users of social media sites are just a lot more tolerant to change… that’s why they are there in the first place.

On the bright side, I can say that at least during my time at ESPN, the bad feelings from users usually subsided after a few weeks after users got comfortable and realized all that had been improved. That said, I am pleasantly surprised and shocked that seemingly 99% of the comments on our announcement thread are quite positive so far.