Also are there any news websites that get the balance between ads and content right in terms of layout and graphic design?
Is there any reason the NY Times doesn't recreate their front page on the website? I mean, the "top fold" concept ("everyone, this is the big story,") is pretty much directly applicable to the web, after all.
The "blog" approach is wearing thin, (especially among aggregators) and the "top rotator" that so many sites use is pointless at best, and goddamn annoying usually.
But, all of that said, Google News is my homepage. newsmap.jp is no stranger to my browser either. Maybe I'm a sucker for flash (the concept, not the tech,) but allowing me to select which sections I'm seeing, color-coded, and size/coverage adjusted, just makes sense to me.I wish it also translated too. I'd love to be able to get a better idea of foreign coverage from it.
Wow, this whole wall of text, and I guess my point is "the best anyone has done so far, is in not being a COMPLETE pain in my ass." Sorry.
Other examples: http://www.zeit.de/ http://sueddeutsche.de/
Drop me a line if you're working on anything newspaper or journalism related and you'd like to chat about it- my username at google mail.