I was recently asked the question "Are there any sites that provide good news? I'm fed up of reading about miserable information!" I had a look around and actually - there are a few! While a lot of news is negative, and there often appears to be more interest in bad stories rather than good, it's helpful to balance things out now and then. So, if you're tired of miserable news, try:
Good News Network. This site has various news sections, just like regular news sites, with top stories, RSS, a subscription service, inspirational quotes and so on.
HappyNews - all the news that's fun to print. Again, various sections, columnists, quotes, and links to 'unhappy' news sites.
Good News Broadcast a very busy site with an emphasis on YouTube videos, and very feel good, though in my opinion not quite so much 'news' items as the previous two.
Gimundo - good news served daily. Good news hotspots via Google maps, videos, RSS, best of the web and so on. I really like their take on the news - 'higher gas prices mean less accidents' being one excellent example.
Great News Network is a bit digg like, with votes for stories. News by category, region, submit news, and an RSS feed.
Upbeat news stories is promoting good, positive and upbeat stories. However, this one looks pretty dormant I'm afraid.
Positive News is a UK based site. It's the web based version of a paper based quarterly. Not so much current affairs, more feel good, sustainable future type information.
Yes! Magazine, which again looks like a website of a paper based newsletter/magazine. More on political issues than current affairs from the look that I took.
Self growth is a site that does focus on current events, aggregating stories that have a positive spin from other news sites.
Daily Good delivers inspiring stories to your inbox. Focus on inspirational, rather than 'news'.
Bouphonia is a weblog that is a personal one, looking at positive news events of interest to the blogger from around the world.
Happy Posts is a social network where people post positive stories. I found it a little too sugary for my liking, but maybe I'm just a miserable grouch?
Well - happy news resources. Take a moment out to read one or two of them. Smile at someone you don't know. And, just for a moment, count how many blessings you have.
I'm wondering - just how many people think using the word 'EXPLOSION' in the title of a posting sent to a mailing list is a really good way to sell products? dawsonera do! I was scanning my email this evening (as you do) and just running my eye down the list of subject headings and saw 'EXPLOSION' (yes, in capitals). It turns out that some bloke who is clearly a sandwich short of a picnic has decided that he's going to tell us all about his company's new products with the strap line "dawsonera Content …EXPLOSION!"
How mind blowingly dumb, crass and stupid is that do you suppose? For once, words fail me.
This is a really nice mashup example: MetaCarta GeoSearch News. It pulls stories from AP, Reuters and so on for the last 24 hours back to this month which are presented in the left hand side of the pane, with a Google Map on the right hand side. Searchers can also search for a place and or subject and link them together. Clicking on the results either in the list pane or in the map takes the searcher to the story. Most recent news story that I've seen was produced in the last 25 minutes or so.
Nice and straightforward, though I'd really have liked to have seen a little more breakdown of the stories on the maps - only one icon is used and it would have been good to have had a few, even basic options such as politics or technology for example. Irritatingly this is almost available, since you can filter stories by various categories. No RSS either.
Worth a look if you're a bit of a news junkie and you want to have a slightly different visual approach.
The BBC has changed their webpage format to something approaching a start page - there's a definite 2.0 flavour to it now. You can choose which elements you want (TV, history, News and so on) and can move them around. There are some good aspects, in that it's much clearer and easier to read. It's a much larger page, allowing more room for information.
However, they're also using the major part of the right hand side of the page for their own adverts, which cannot be moved around. I appreciate that, but equally it limits the flexibility and makes a bit of a mockery of it being 'my homepage'. The personalisation is based on cookies as well, which means that it's going to be different every time I use a new machine, which is an irritation. I also found, though it may be my imagination, that the page takes a lot longer to load now than it used to.
It's different, and I'm not sure that I'll like it, though I like the move forward. It's really that lump of real estate that I can't do anything with which irritates.
It was announced today that Kosova (or Kosovo) has declared independence from Serbia. If you need to get hold of information about the country, try my Kosova and Kosovo search engines page, which includes a multi search engine for the 5 search engines listed, and links to books and photographs about the country. You might also want to check out the Serbia search engines page too while you're at all; this lists 11 search engines.
It's not that often that I'll just sit and work my way through a search engine these days and go 'ohhh!' and other such expressions of surprise and delight. However when I took a look at Silobreaker that's exactly what happened. Silobreaker is a news search engine, which is a bit like saying a book contains pages. It's far more than that. Let me take you through a few of the functions.
Obviously we have our search box, and it comes up with suggestions as you type. I got as far as 'gord' and up popped Gordon Brown's name. A search then produces basic facts and figures with a link to his biography. There is a bunch of YouTube videos as well. We also have top stories, which are updated very regularly - the top story was first reported 15 hours ago and updated an hour ago. A mouseover of the title of the story provides greater information with links to other similar stories, and a link to 'entities' - other people involved in the same story.
There's an 'in focus' side box which allows you to look in more detail at any of the relevant subject areas (in this case, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Northern Rock, UK, China, and a good dozen others), and a 'Network' box that provides a graphical representation of the subject with other related areas.
There's a 'hotspots' map, and a mouse over allows you to see exactly what is going on in a particular place in relation to the subject of your search. Below that is a 'trends' box, based on all articles on Brown, Blair and Cameron. Next up is a quotes section, in this case with quotes by and about Brown. Finally there is a link to more content, broken down by news, reports, blogs, audio/video and fact sheets.
You can personalise the search engine by registering and playing around with the widgets to make your own page. Moreover, you can assist Silobreaker by identifying 'entities', such as people, companies, organizations and key phrases, which they can include in the future. A nice feature which is almost hidden, while on other search engines it's being trumpeted as their entry into 'social search'.
In short, this is a magnificent news search engine, and has, in a stroke, just blown away the competition. I really would urge you to explore it - you *will* find useful material there. (A big thanks to AltSearchEngines for this one).
My pick of the weeks news. This is something new that I'm trying. Rather than just blog the news I thought I'd try and commentate on it as well. I think I can say more in a shorter space of time than I can type, and I can talk about slightly different things as well. Consequently, I'm going to give this a go. I'd *really* appreciate feedback on if you think it works and is worth pursuing. It does take quite a lot of time to put together, but if people think it's worth doing, then I'll carry on with it. (I'm also happy to take sponsorship as well, by providing a slot in the middle of the presentation and a chat about your product or site.)
Here's the presentation from Authorstream (you can follow the link above and see it there if you prefer, and feel free to embed it as is in your own weblogs or sites without change.)
Alternatively, if you don't want the vocal version, you can go for the Slideshare version, which does have the advantage that the links can be clicked on.
Boxing Day busiest online shopping day in the UK during 2007. This is according to Hitwise. No really big surprise since Boxing Day has been one of the very busiest days of the year for the last few years. Given that lots of commercial organisations started their sales early it just added to the hysteria. The top 5 retailers were Argos, Currys, Comet, M&S and Next. The graph gives an indication of how busy it was.
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