At long last, Media Guardian has had its facelift, following the formula of other recent Guardian redesigns. It’s wide, it’s long, and it looks like it’s having a few (entirely forgiveable) first-day hiccups. It looks fine… much like every other 1024-wide news site redesign I’ve seen recently. But you know what? I find myself barely caring. I almost never look at the site’s homepage, and I almost never use its in-page navigation. With all their content coming to me courtesy of their RSS – sorry, ‘webfeed’ – I never need to. (Maybe that’s why Jason Deans seems so matter-of-fact in his write-up on the OrganGrinder blog.)
Incidentally: I note the site’s individual sections now have their own separate RSS feeds… and they’ve moved the Media Monkey gossip column into a blog format, so it’s got its own RSS – although, er, actually it’s Atom – too.
The most interesting development, I suppose, is the addition of a ‘video’ channel: Flash-based streaming courtesy of Brightcove, in a larger-than-usual 460×345 window. A rather odd mix of offerings so far: a few ‘proper’ TV news packages, a few stupid behind-the-scenes things, a few clips / trailers / free adverts. I’m sure it’ll work itself out in time.
Do you get full feeds from Media Guardian then? All I seem to get are headlines.
You’re right, Shane – it’s partial feeds only, but that’s enough to avoid any worry with navigation.