Spotback News Weblog

Story by Ryan Singel from the August 2006 issue of PC World magazine
Link: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,126113,pg,3,00.asp

"So much news on the Web, so little time to read it all. These tools and sites can help make you an incredibly well-informed person--in a hurry."

"...Spotback, a site that debuted in May and offers several ways for you to adjust which stories you see. A slider bar lets you indicate how much you like each story on a scale of -5 to +5. Also, drop-down 'Less' and 'More' menus let you block a news source, category, or subcategory, or request more stories from it.

Spotback's excellent user interface puts a yellow background behind the stories you've read, and when you rate a story you get instant feedback: The site uses Ajax (a popular Web programming technique that employs behind-the-scenes browser requests to make Web sites feel more like desktop apps) to magically slot in a related story directly below the one you've just rated. Regrettably, Spotback falters on the matter of timeliness. The 'Computers and Internet' section sometimes features six- and seven-day-old stories--an eon in online news time."

Also mentioned: Techmeme, Memeorandum.com, Findory, Digg, Reddit, Rojo and more.

Regarding Singel's closing comment: Spotback offers the option to choose not to show stories older than 'x' days. This option was set to 10 days by default and was recently changed into 3 days. Users may chance this setting at any time.

Posted by Micha Kaufman at 04:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (85)

This update includes:
- Changes in the user interface (less icons under each story to make reading easier)
Before

After
Explanation: In this screenshot the 'more' and 'less' menus were combined into one menu that is accessible by moving your mouse above the sub-category (in this case: 'Apple'). The rest of the options, such as 'email story', 'add comment' and 'save story' are now in one menu that opens when you click the (+options) at end of each story

Why change?
The problem with visual elements that repeat too many times on the screen is that you get used to disregarding them... We do not want that to happen - we want you to use those features whenever you need them. Your comments on the change are more than welcome.