If you're interested, please visit:
NewsfeedZ.com (note the Z :-)
Hmmmmmmm..... Nice, simple layout. Not too "busy". I like that. With 16 (news services?), some in foreign languages, all neatly laid-out in colour coded boxes, you pretty much need to keep the homepage layout simple. And why the ability to 'close' any individual service/section? (The little "close" box in the upper right-hand corner?) To allow the news-surfer to view only those categories he's interested in more clearly? And why so *many* categories, many unrelated? Hmmmm... I can *almost* get the whole screen to appear without having to use the lateral scroll bar. I don't like doing that; I prefer to be able to view the whole screen (I'm using IE 5), and just scroll UP & Down. And of course I'm now wondering about the front banner leading to "DawnLoad.net" Hmm.... has a familiar ring. (A play on the words <DOWN>load and After<DAWN>? The page structure is too familiar for us not to know you did it, dRD. :) A concise display of news services/articles, coupled with a concise display of useful software, with all the usual links available on either side of the DawnLoad.net screen. Hmmmmmm..... well, if *I* were looking for software, I just come to afterdawn. (No really, I don't need an offshoot site), and despite the fact that I can apparently "collapse" news categories that don't interest me, (or in a foreign language), still, I think there's far too much world-news represented on the site than I can personally find the time to deal with. (Unless, perhaps I was looking for something specific). Very ambitious project, dRD. What have I missed? -- KlingonAgent --
It's really currently in beta phase. The ultimate idea is this: the news selection will contain appx. 100-200 categories soon-ish and you can simply create an account and select the ones you want to appear, as well as other settings (font size, how many "boxes" appear on one row, etc). So, basically create a view of all the news sites you normally visit and to see their news selection on one page. And Dawnload.net is actually a rather old side-kick, been there around a year now, haven't promoted it at all, since currently it basically just mirrors AfterDawn.com's software selection. The goal is to slowly add new, non-AfterDawn.com-related software categories (like certain Net tools, etc) to Dawnload and not to add those to AfterDawn.com (to keep aD strictly within video/audio/copyprot/cd/dvd -sector). Our little "network of sites" currently contains aD, Dawnload and MP3Lizard (and we have appx. 15-20 domains reserved already if we got new neat ideas ;-) And really, the point that virtually everybody misses with the current stage of development is the fact that it will be 100% customizable. Hopefully within 2-3 weeks (wishful thinking, as usual ;-). Problem is that once you're a coder, you always need a new challenge :-)
Excelent idea dRD. Some technical issue (like usually with beta versions), the dmusic box has a few mixed up topics/links. I´ve been relying on AD for my tech-newsfeed for some time now, but if this would be a collection of where you guys find the information... I might just have to spend less time on the AD frontpage, ;-) Props for the clean style (short loading times). But if you upp. the number of boxes to a hundred, well, customize!
Ghostdog: Obviously the default selection will contain something like top 10-15 feeds and that's it. Rest of the feeds can be then found when logged in and when you customize your "user experience" :-) We have appx. 40-60 news sources we scan daily plus certain (sometimes overwhelming) amount of direct press releases, newstips, etc from companies and individuals. Problem is that sometimes we just simply don't have time to write an article about every issue we found -- that was one reason why we teamed up with cd-rw.org who gives us an additional news input every now and then (as well as maintains parts of the audio software library, cd-rw software section and cdr forums). We rather not just copy/paste news we feel that are important, but instead we try to keep them in "bigger picture" and give our own (sometimes/often extremely subjective) input to the articles as well.
I know how you feel, at least I think i do. These days it seems I have less time to surf on the net and check out the topics on AD forums, not to mention a whole lot of other stuff.