Does anyone like or understand the new NBCNEWS.com web site?

Cafe Society
#1

MSNBC.com was my primary news source for 12 years. Last year it became NBCNEWS.com. It was the best formatted and organized news web site on the web. I typically was on there three or four times a day checking the headlines.

Yesterday they went to this new format. It’s just a disorganized mess. Huge pictures with one line in the middle. WTH have they done? :confused: It just scrolls and scrolls with these huge ass pictures. Such wasted space for a tiny link and finding or comprehending what stories are published is difficult.

Does anyone like or understand this new web site format? Is there any way to just get a list of the links? What if I turned off flash?

#2

I am not a fan. It looks like they are going for the tiled look that you find with mobile devices and Windows 8. That said, it’s just really hard to find anything. I liked that news was grouped into sections. It was easy to find what you wanted or wanted to ignore. Not so much now.

#3

It sucks. Here is what I emailed to them:

#4

It’s really awful. Works better on a mobile device but still not great. I’ve already switched to using BBC and CNN for news updates through the day.

#5

reuters is nicely laid out. It’s organized into sections. A few pictures but they aren’t huge like nbcnews. I rely on reuters for international news and some US news.

#6

looks like it’s designed for tablets

#7

it is better to have a computer screen website and a mobile device website.

if there is one website many are shifting to a mobile device layout which sucks if you’re on a computer.

#8

I agree it sucks, and I also agree that the old site wasn’t broke (at least on a computer). I have gone to it over the past couple days mostly out of habit. Now that I hate the layout, once I remember that I hate it, habit broken. Now I gotta work on finding another news source I like.

#9

Ugh. I can’t stand big honking images with minimal tag lines; I don’t even like mobile apps that use that format. It’s just much easier to get an overview of the important headlines with a good headline and a smaller image.

Reuters does have a better presentation (both on the web site and their mobile apps). BBC News works well on their site, but their mobile app tends toward the image-grid setup, though it’s somewhat customizable. Yahoo News (slag them if you will) does at least have a concise presentation of headlines and thumbnails, as does Google News.

I understand the trend toward mobile-friendly tile/grid presentations, but I don’t understand why they’re always so damn big. It’s much easier to get a sense of the story and its importance or interest factor if I can tell what it’s about from a headline and maybe a line or two summary. (Yahoo News actually has a Digest app on the iTunes store that does this quite successfully.)

#10

NBC, formerly msnbc, was my go-to news site just because I liked the comics and sudoku. They got rid of those, so I used other news sites. Now that they’ve uglified their webpage and made it much less usable, I won’t go there anymore. I’ll delete the bookmark when I get round to it.

I should put a nastygram on their facebook page.

#11

Another “ugh” vote for the new format.

#12

I sent them a note asking them to go back to the old format, or at least make it so I could use the slightly less annoying drop-down menu as a default home page.

#13

This is exactly how I feel. It was a fine habit, but I hate the updated site.

#14

I wish someone here would use Greasemonkey to create a useable view of nbcnews.com

Greasemonkey was designed exactly to do that. I’ve got the plug in installed and have run greasemonkey scripts. I’ve never written a script myself.

#15

It is like a news site for four-year-olds. I kept expecting to hear different sound effects as I clicked on the pretty pictures. The Sochi fireworks go “boom!” The hijacker’s plane goes “whooosh!” To America, Snowden goes “Thhpppttt!” :smiley:

#16

Reflexively my brain went: “What does the fox say?”

#17

MSNBC has it’s own website now:

#18

I tried to look at one article. It was the one about Leno’s farewell. Clicked on the video, and a little spinny thing came up and never went away. Total waste. Never again.

#19

I don’t see what the problem is, click on the little “Menu” thingie in the upper left hand corner.

#20

Or lab monkeys learning which icon to press for a cookie.