Dilbert on news aggregators | Hacker News Reader

Dilbert on news aggregators

dilbert.com

43 pointstrs8111 comments

It made me laugh, but it's too broad of a generalization.

Some news aggregators really add value. They drive traffic and stimulate interesting discussion. They make it easier to get opposing viewpoints on the same topic.

I wonder if Scott Adams has a chip on his shoulder because of the effect aggregators have on old media, his bread-and-butter. I find it hard to imagine XKCD labeling all news aggregators as parasites.

I think this was really more a joke about Rupert Murdoch than his personal view, especially since Murdoch's 'parasites' comment has been discussed a lot recently.

Edit: adding link to show a reference http://www.mediaite.com/online/google-rupert-murdoch-decries...

I'm showing my personal bias, of course. I just launched a business/economic social news site called http://newsley.com.

But, far from being parasites, social news sites expose readers to a much greater cross section of news than a local newspaper ever could. And, a well moderated social news site like Hacker News or a heavily filtered reddit is much more useful than an editor could ever be. There's still a whole lot of room for news aggregation/content crap filtration online. Social News is just getting started.

But then, I'm probably preaching to the choir here on HN. :)

On newsley, I don't think making the description a link is a good idea. Digg does this too and I find it very annoying as I'll accidentally click it sometimes (for example, if I want to copy and paste it). I'd also suggest making the description text a lighter color so the titles stand out a bit more.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm working on making some design changes to the site. Changing the color of the description text is a good idea.

And, thanks for the input on changing the description text to make it unclickable. I'll have to think that one through a bit.

http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2009-11-17/

A link to the minimal version of the site (no flash etc.)

It wou- ld have been funni- er with- out break- ing words

Hyphenation improves readability tremendously. It's a time-honored practice whose results have been proven repeatedly.

Yes, there is a certain irony in words being broken only because they need to fit within the rigid printing parameters of the newspaper medium he's trying to defend.

Are you kidding me? I thought it was part of the joke. Nice pun, there.

This was more sad than funny.

I like Dilbert but Scott Adams seems unpleasantly wed to the past.

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