In my earlier post, I mentioned RSS which stands for Really Simple Syndication.
Admittedly off topic but since this discussion seems to persist, I thought I would bring to light a technology doing away with the need to claim that any one site is better than another, especially for news. Other reasons for site preferences are likely justifiable for each individual.
Many of the sites people are interested in are beginning to provide the RSS feed. WHY ? Because it is a broadcast technology intended to reduce internet traffic by using a single copy reaching one internet distribution node to be simultaneously sent to a set of listed receivers. In then end, it will reduce the number of direct hits necessary to broadcast information and limit site hits to only "commercial transactions". Just as ISPs are now feeding a single copy to multiple Usenet subscribers, handling the individual requests on a captive network to hide the reader traffic from the Internet backbone, each individual RSS data stream will send a single copy to the lowest level distribution point (ISP) where it will be broadcast the addresses of listed subscribers. (this is why I believe RSS feeds may eventually be cached at ISPs just as the Usenet group messages are today).
If you want to know how to manage newsfeeds in a manner as close to your satisfaction as possible today, you may want to look into
- what RSS is
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- web browsers that can be used to handle this newsfeed format because RSS is a dialect of XML.
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- RSS browsers, usually called news aggregators, tend to be a customized "skin" of the browser APIs, creating a look and feel specific to managing the news feed in a manner conducive to "feed subscribers". The following gives an idea of what can be done with one such "aggregator". PLEASE do not take this as an endorsement of this particular tool.
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- List of aggregators that at available with information on OS compatibility and feature implementations/styles.
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I am still learning about this technology myself. But with everyone talking about specific sites being better than others, I think it really is best to start considering becoming your own news editor (at desktop) via use of the RSS technology to look at ALL sites providing RSS feeds then using a desktop aggregator to select/group/etc. as you yourself deem fit for display in your browser's "published version" of what you have chosen to be of importance for inclusion in Section A of your RSS newspaper, with everything else being either grouped into other topical sections or the clippings archive including ALL feeds received from ALL sources.