Dumb Little Man | Tips for Life

Guest post while Jay is in Canada - Jay's wife Marie...

I am 30 years old yet I completely remember my first GWBASIC class at age 8 (I think it was all caps). I have lived online since the beginning and I am not going to rant but at some point you just kind of get irritated with a lot of the major old-school news organizations that forget who they serve. For me, the tipping point happened a long time ago when the God's of news started with the floating ads and pop-ups. Then you have the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune mandating that I subscribe just to read a story (see image)

To me news is news. It's on TV all the time and there are a ton of sites willing to give it up without irritating the crap out of me. So...for the most part, I don't go to mainstream media companies anymore for information. It's just not worth the hassle and nothing comes from my registration except for spam and unneeded login pages.

The unfortunate part for the old-school media is that my entire 23-35 year old demographic is backing me. I would challenge any news company on Earth to study my age bracket and conclude that obtrusive ads, spam, and "register to read" is a good, open form of communicating with the public. It simply won't happen.

Yes, Dumb Little Man has an ad or two on their site but they are not in your face and it doesn't stop the flow of information just to make a buck. That's where these guys don't get it. I don't care if you make money, but be passive and discreet. Don't force it upon me.

Ok, done. Here is where I get my news and it's all I need.

Popurls: One could argue that this is the only site you need. Popurls constantly revolves the most popular stories of the hour. It displays feeds from Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, Newsvine, Metafilter, Tailrank, Google News, Yahoo News, Netscape, You Tube, Shoutwire, Slashdot, Wired, Fark, Furl, Heavy.com, Wired and Flickr.

LiveMarks: Scrolling list of Bookmarks as they are made. When I bookmark some story on del.icio.us, Livemarks shows the URL title and also shows the most popular items. You can also setup tag filters so you don't see "New BBQ recipes" or whatever.

Diggdot.us: User submitted top stories from Digg, Slashdot, and del.icio.us.

Populair: Just check it out. Some guy listed all of the great sites of today and categorized them. Definitely worth a bookmark.

Digg: Digg's top stories are generally listed on the sites I have already mentioned but there are times when some good stories just don't make the front page.

Reddit: Same as Digg. Front page stories get a lot of visibility but it's bases on user voting so occasionally some good news misses the front page.

Yahoo: The only pages I visit here are the Most Popular, Most Recommended and Most emailed. Why? Simple. If the public reads stories and thinks it's important enough to send to a co-worker or Aunt Betty, then it filters itself and only lists the important items.

Google News: Kind of have to add this one. It's my start page and the first thing I see in the morning. In a glance I see the world's news.

MSNBC: I hate them on TV, but their news site is easy to read and there are no forms, crazy ads, or talking pop-ups.

I also get a ton of parenting advice from About.com. That's not really news but they have a ton of good advice for Moms.

If you visit any good bi-partisan sites or blogs that don't kill you with ads, let me know. I use Bloglines for all of my news feeds and I'd love to check them out.

Good night.
Marie