[LINK] ABC News Critique

[George Bray]

Here's a challenge for critical linkers, see if you can find anything
wrong with the new ABC News site.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/

To my mind it's a superb example of a fast, light and immensely rich site.

Looks good in all the browsers I tried on Mac.

Really, very very fast to fetch and render.

Modern user interface with in-page switchable tabs, nice layout and
colouring, advanced search engine and human-grokkable URLs.

Customisable media delivery options per user, the in-browser defaults
worked for me.

Great use of tags to "stick" me to the site, making me come back for
the news in my areas.

Invites community submission of media for news items captured by the
public, and has a level of discussion above the news using blogs and
comments. Not to mention delivery to mobile devices using RSS feeds.

Excellent re-use of broadcast TV and radio assets. Easy-to-use media
players, they've made optimal use of the Flash video format squeezing
a decent frame rate into a small-ish bandwidth.

Aunty has multiplied the value I get from my news staples on radio and
TV by giving me a sophisticated tool that makes news research and
consumption easier, and more compatible with my timetable.

Eleven out of Ten.

George
-- 
George Bray - University of Canberra, Australia