Newspond: Saccharine, Misbegotten Child Of Digg And Techmeme?

Contrary to what some believe, Newspond, the latest entry into the news aggregator scene, isn’t really teh awesome. Here’s the two second run down: it aggregators news, like Techmeme.  It allows you to comment, like Digg.

Sure, there’s a fancy Ajax-y kind of wrapper around it, and there’s a way to sort out stories that are popular amongst different time periods, amongst other things.

My two second take on it is that — you know, maybe for people with 30 inch displays, it works.  But for someone with an average 19 inch display, you just can’t absorb enough information at a glance.  The reason why Techmeme works for me (and Megite, and Blogrunner) is that they are all “no frills” in their appearance.  I get to see headlines — lots of headlines, organized and indented in such a way that I recognize at a *glance* the hierarchy of news {its also why I likes popurls}.

Could Techmeme learn a thing or three from Newspond?  Sure.  (Where’s that search function, Gabe?)

But is it revolutionary?  … to borrow a word from Newspond’s own lexicon — “meh”.  They’ll have to tighten up the design and usability up a few ratchets before I change that into a “yea”.

3 Trackbacks

  1. By Newspond leaves me dry on February 20, 2008 at 3:47 am

    [...] Deep Jive Interests » Newspond: Saccharine, Misbegotten Child Of Digg And Techmeme? [...]

  2. [...] TechCrunch is down on how the how the service works and its grandiose marketing claims, while Tony Hung is equally unimpressed, and slaps Newspond on the wrist for describing itself as [...]

  3. By Ankle-deep in the Newspond - - mathewingram.com/work on February 20, 2008 at 8:48 am

    [...] that means), and as my friend Tony Hung notes at Deep Jive Interests, cool design can even be a detriment for a news [...]

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