David Weinberger describes the unbundling of media in clear terms:
“I’ve been saying for a while, and I think in Everything Is Miscellaneous, that the new front page is distributed across our day and our network. Much of it comes through our inbox. It consists of people we know and people we don’t know recommending items for our interest.”
If you still think ‘readers’ are dependent on ‘editors’ to filter the news for them… Actually, if you still think that, there’s not much that I can do. You should go explore Digg or the Huffington Post or Slashdot or whatever social media site you can find that interests you. Wire editors should check out Newsvine, for example. Actually seeing social media in action (extra points for participation) will make it seem a bit less nebulous, I promise.
My front page, in roughly the priority I cycle through it in the morning over breakfast:
- Gmail
- Google Reader
- Google News, including sections for specific places and topics
- My local online newspaper (This was much higher on the list when I worked there.)
- My delicious network (I rarely get this far these days, but that’s where I just pulled the Weinberger post from, via Kevin.)
So what does your front page look like? Digg? NYT? YouTube? Netvibes? None of the above?
‘Splain yourself below…
Oh, and if you really need to see some well-designed newspaper front pages, have at ’em.
Ryan Sholin 
Ryan, I’m curious: do you know whether Newsvine, Daylife or any of their siblings is getting much traction?
Digg and Slashdot obviously work splendidly for their core users, but I’m not aware of a more generalized news site that mirrors them. Huffington Post is a good example of selection and editing, but it’s hardly reader-driven.
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@Howard — Let’s put it this way: I’ve tried those sites out but they don’t have any traction with me. But the users are there — especially at Newsvine.
Don’t overestimate the value of these “News” sites.
I get “news” from all over the place: The members of my social network do the filtering for me, posting links and notes on Facebook, linking to stories and video and multimedia from their blogs, sending me links to articles in e-mail and text messages.
So I think you’re right — Social news sites are best left to the niches; but social news is happening far away from those sites.
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I’ll bite:
1) My Outlook mail (work, students)
2) Gmail (almost everything else)
3) Google Reader
4) iGoogle (other news feeds here)
5) Third e-mail app (old listservs)
6) del.icio.us network (about twice a week)
7) Google News (occasionally)
And NPR’s Morning Edition (daily), PBS’s News Hour and the woefully brief 30-minute BBC news shown on my PBS station.
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NYT
Gmail
Facebook
LiveJournal
LA Observed
College newspaper Web site
College newspaper blog
misc. news sites: LA Times, SF Chron, Washington Post, CNN (if I even get this far)
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