New BBC News site vs Telegraph Online

Well well, here it is at last.

After countless public information blogs and even some pre-launch screenshots, the new BBC News website confronted users this morning as they browsed for their morning fill of news alongside their Weetabix.

And what do we think? Well, I was surrounded by an array of reactions, from "cack" to many, much warmer-sounding "ooooh"s and even one "why have they done this to me?"...

For me, I don't mind it at all. It seems to be pretty reactionary (and what, in the world of news website design isn't?), which is more of a good thing when it comes to BBC sites in the UK, as they don't have to factor in advertising - the number 1 complaint of any web user when asked.

So it's clean and reasonably appealing, which in fairness, the BBC site has always been.

The first thing that gleans any kind of derision from this viewer is the sheer size of the main headline, in this case 'UK employment declines to 2.47m'*.

And it feels, even though comparing new to old is not the case, like there are fewer stories on the front.

This is because of the top story - two sub-stories - list of others approach being centre-stage.

Previously, the list of other stories was segregated, to the right-hand side of the page.

Now, it is right there in front of me, and a lack of images makes me feel like it is an after-thought. But that is just me. If a list of stories is to be a focal point, give it something to appeal to the reader.

I also don't like 'Also in the news' being so prominent (did you see what I did there, did you?). Again, this, to me, means a section full of stupid stories that no one knew what to do with, and I perceive them to not really belong in the news, but instead in some God-awful 'Funny news' or 'Weird news' section.

I wish the BBC would lose a touch of superiority complex and call it what it is; the 'Stuff that isn't really news but you might laugh at and send to your mates boosting our numbers and justifying why we put this crap up', but I understand that may contain a few too many characters.

Another thing I find slightly patronising, and a classic reaction to reports of clicks and reader response, is the sheer size of the 'Most Popular' panel. Does it really need to be so large?

I realise click reports will show this to be THE panel on the homepage - although again, the Beeb retains an intellectual standpoint by putting the doubtless under-used 'Features & Analysis' panel above it - but honestly, if we are struggling to see it, we'll have our eyes tested.

The mid-page barrier, a customizable insert for weather and news from various regional and local BBC sites, is actually quite nice, also retaining some of the 'elsewhere' links from the old site.
Below here though, is where it starts to lose the plot for me.

The homepage descends into some sort of half-impression of the Daily Mail site - see here for what I mean - with overblown story summaries (yet none on the main headlines? A compromise would have been nice) in a bid to gain Google hits, and just simple over-population of this area.

It smacks of the developer saying "well, this is where you've lost most visitors, as our research shows most readers will scroll for 1.7534 turns of the little wheel thing on their mouse, so we thought we might as well cram as many keywords as possible into this section".

For me, it looks silly and too slap-dash.

And it also looks like the Telegraph, as the entire site does, far too much.

And the Telegraph constantly freezes my browser, so let's hope this isn't the case with the new BBC News site...

Overall though, there isn't a drastic change here, just a few minor alterations in a bid to catch up to other news sites in terms of volume of content and keywords.

BBC News has long been a reliable and technically-sound site - let's hope it stays that way.

* For the record, a font this big, with the SEO headline is just annoying to me. Get over the SEO thing people, or wait three months, then someone will come up a tag that hides the bit Google searches from us poor readers who have to look at it.

The World Cup of punditry

Now I'm no football fan - obviously as I'm a Wolves fan, before anyone feels the urge to crack that joke - but having a flatmate who is a fanatic, I haven't been able to avoid the World Cup.

But, far more interesting than the football for me, as a forced observer, has been the performance of the rival pundits on the BBC and ITV.

The BBC scored a cracker with the amusing Clarence Seedorf - a Dutch footballer apparently - whose feature on that ball that bends around corners in particular was hilarious, and actually quite enlightening.

And seemingly in direct competition was the ITV's own Dutch signing, Edgar Davids, who was really not as interesting, let alone funny! Bless him, but he didn't seem to cotton on to the age-old pundit banter and hilarity...

And don't get me started on Gareth Southgate, although I have warmed to him, probably because I was the only bloke in the world who laughed at the Pizza Hut ad he did after missing a penalty.

But leading the way of course are the two frontmen.

Gary Lineker, who is starting to get very irritating with the way he raises his eyes when cracking a sarcastic little funny, compared to Adrian Chiles, who seemingly can't stop saying "why do we do this to ourselves?" when talking about any match (and I presume the bumper ITV contract would be the primary reason Adrian)...

Also disappointing, particularly last night (a semi-final between Holland and someone in blue which weirdly saw Mr Davids absent from the ITV panel, when you would presume this was THE game to have him on?), was the lack of a commentary pundit.

I love these guys; the bloke who has to sit next to the actual commentator, usually an ex-pro, and give us a bit of professional insight into what has happened.

I only saw the first half, so perhaps this was rectified later, but from what I heard, the ITV commentator was alone (I don't know who he was, but he did an admirable job in the face of adversity), probably freezing on a gantry, the wind gusting around his ears, wishing to have Mick McCarthy or someone alongside him to share in the thrill of the game, although it was really boring.

Sad really, I always enjoy comparing the professional commentator to the ageing footballer, who always seems to disagree with his gantry comrade.

Still, with ad revenues being what they are on commercial television, I suppose it would be no great surprise if Gary Gillespie turned up in South Africa (who knows, he may even commentate via satellite from London, or Liverpool, or Milton Keynes) only to find a P45 in his rented bedsit.

Shame, because we could do with a pundit during the game rather than Adrian 'I-look-like-I'm-sad-even-when-I'm-happy' Chiles, God love him.

But perhaps that's just me. Football fans are a strange bunch, so may well have loved every minute.

UPDATE: I was right, ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley was forced to commentate alone after his co-pro, Jim Beglin, suffered an ear infection.