This is the kind of site that changes your whole view of something.
Slashdot has a story this morning about a visual news agregator. It displays the output of Google News with a visual display describing the relative importance and age of each story.
Newsies talk about the "news hole" (the space in the paper or on the tube that needs to be filled with news). This application shows you how dominant and persistent a story is in the news hole.
The interface is simple and clean, it could be a great way to get a snapshot of what's "in" the news.
Beware: If it doesn't load it may be slashdoted...
Posted by Brad on April 1, 2004 07:27 AMoh wow - that's impressive....nice to look at too
Posted by: Lydia at April 1, 2004 09:59 AMWow, this is indeed quite amazing. I think it's the way I would scan the news from now on (not being much of news junkie).
It's a stellar example of a combination of impressive behind-the-scenes technology and good visual design. I bet Edward Tufte would love this. The only question in my mind is what exactly is being measured to gauge the "importance" of a story: syndicates picking up the story?
Be sure not to miss two key sets of options: at the top, the ability to select different news markets around the world (the comparisons can be fascinating!); and at the bottom, the ability to limit the display to only a few categories (which makes the smallest stories much easier to read).
Posted by: Jon at April 2, 2004 07:59 AM