Newspapers To Offer Their Own News Aggregators

RedSteve writes "Wired News is reporting that several newspapers are about to take on news aggregators at their own game, offering their own branded newsreaders in direct competition with the likes of Google News. The Los Angeles Times, the Denver Post and British newspaper the Guardian will soon offer stand-alone newsreader software for reading stories on their own websites and those of their competitors. The move is apparently intended to capture the less tech-savvy news consumer who may not know what an RSS reader is, but know that their favorite paper now offers them a way to get lots of headlines from lots of places. Oh, and did I mention it allows the newspaper to maintain its brand and sell its own advertising based on what the user is viewing?"

Comments

How much news do we really need?

[Adult film producer]

Too many people acting like it's some race to find out about the latest settlements being constructed in the west bank, how many russian soldiers were fragged in chechnya, how the stock market did every second of the day.. At the end of the day you've learned nothing and you've gotta start over tomorrow. I think it's time people put all this crap where it belongs, in the recycle bin.

Adblocking over RSS/newsreader

[CdBee]

I guess the syndication software market hasn't been fought over as much as the browser, mail client and messaging app (cue resentment after downloading MSN Messenger 7 last night and being shocked by now ad-packed it was)

I suppose what's needed is a newsreader which can selectively block domains or Regular Expressions in the way that adblock for firefox can

Bad Article

[amigoro]

This ain't true. With RSS you can only see headline and if the source so wishes, a brief discussion. The user will have to get the news from the horses mouth.

I think what is happening is a good thing rather than a bad one. Thanks to news aggregators, people can now read the same story from different sources to gather a balanced view.

Take the story about Britain banning Nigerians from entering Britain. Both press esc and BBC carries the story. But the BBC story is far more sympthatic to the British government than the PressEsc story, which is, if anything hostile to it. I bet the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Thanks to RSS feeds and new aggregators, I am able to make up my own mind.

I can understand why the big newspapers are worried. Thanks to RSS not-so-well-established but corporate interest free newspapers can get their news across to the people at large.