I'm not a big fan of bling and show, but sometimes some things make you realize that "sleek" feels great. A few days back I came across a website Newspond.com, which is an automated news engine like Techmeme, but with a lot more oomph attached to it. Infact, I have to say that I'm completely in awe with the design of the website and every edge looks well polished.
Now before you think that I have been paid to talk good about these guys, let me assure you that is not the case. I will first talk about the bad things I've seen at the web site. I have seen some downsides with the news aggregator algorithm that they seem to use. Some news just come above others because of the comments and hence you can actually write spam comments and get the stories higher. Even the indexing of the websites from which stories are shown is not very fast and generally stories take some time to appear at Newspond. May be I am comparing it with Techmeme.com here, but techmeme is a river and this is a pond right ??
But when you consider the look and feel of the website, you tend to forget if the stories appear a little late. Chan Karunamuni needs to be applauded for the brilliant design that he has done on the website. His portfolio shows some of his previous designs and speaks of his skills with the bling. The animations with javascript are great and you can turn off the animations if you are on a low-end computer. Ian Reardon, the other founder of the website has also done a good job with the stories that automatically appear on the website. All the digg-like code where users can comment on stories and give their own views is also good work from Ian.
In the world of Web 2.0 where people share stories, talk about other people's stories on their own blogs, finding different views on a story can be very useful. That's what Web 2.0 is all about. Newspond truly gives you a gorgeous view of the entire blogosphere (as a pond)...
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