[LINK] RFC: 'Does Crikey Work For Me?'

[Roger Clarke]

At my advancing age, I don't really want to change, but ...

I finally got fed up with the Oz's deep commitment to its own agenda, 
and cancelled my very-longstanding Tuesdays-only subscription for the 
dead-trees-on-the-lawn edition.

The SMH is looking like a halfway-house between broadsheet and 
tabloid, and I have a feeling that my very-longstanding 
6-days-per-week sub to Fairfax may be approaching an end as well.

$100 p.a. saved on The Oz, and potentially $550 on the SMH, leaves me 
with money, but bereft of convenient-and-stimulating breakfast 
reading.

So I finally signed up for Crikey's 21-day free trial.

After 48 hours, I have a few questions for them.

So far, the quality seems pretty decent;  and, after years being 
forced to read moderately-right to hopelessly-self-right(eous) media, 
it's pleasant to read a mildly-left-of-centre, moderately-sparky 
style.

But, as regards this particular form of 'new media', my current 
feeling is 'if this is the future, we haven't got very far yet'.

Before I seek out the owner's and editor's email-addresses, I'd 
appreciate any reactions from the Link Institute that may help deepen 
my understanding, or correct my misapprehensions.

Thanks in advance!


         Disappointments with Crikey's Format in March 2013

1.  I'm interested in 'policy issues', but not in 'politics'.

     There's a heading for 'politics', with sub-headings / sub-tags of
     federal and 8 States & Territories;  plus World, with 5 sub-tags

     But how do I filter out all the sports-reporting on Parties?

2.  How do I get a short overview of current stories, without
     having to page down through lots of teasers and white-space?

     http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/ is better, but still wasteful.
     http://www.smh.com.au/text/ is now dormant, and maybe *too* skint.

3.  How do I see the date-time-stamp on articles without opening them?

     This is of some consequence when looking at current articles,
     e.g. with 'breaking' stories, where there may be a need to look
     again at a story that I read a few hours ago.

     It's of much *greater importance where the list is not restricted
     to current articles, e.g. the results list from a search

4.  How do I customise an edition?  The main options I'd like are:
     -   suppress some tags (e.g. Business / Companies and Players;
         Culture / Film & TV and People & Ideas)
     -   nominate the sequence I'd like stories to appear in, based on
         prioritisation of tags, and grouping of relevant stories
         (e.g. Business / Economy and Policy / Social)
     -   suppress images, videos and designer-headings

5.  How do I get a worthwhile emailed newsletter?

     It reaches me as a vast mess of HTML, completely unusable.

     If I want a newsletter, I want headlines and 2-line excerpts, in .txt,
     and with a clickable URL for each story, straight to the web-page.

     And I want the option to customise the content, as per 4. above.

6.  How do I look at editions earlier than a fortnight ago?


-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University