Dave Winer fixes mobile news consumption with River-of-News philosophy

Link: BuzzMachine � Blog Archive � The river of news.

I caught this on Jeff’s site this evening…

Dave Winer is up to something important… again. He has been talking about wanting ‘rivers of news” — that is, headlines stripped of the packaging around them to give him a constant flow of what’s new. And he just created a few to feed his — and our — mobile phones.

As Jeff goes on to explain, Dave has implemented NYTimesRiver.com and BBCRiver.com — simply taking the site’s feed and sticking into an html web page that your Blackberry or any mobile phone will love.  Read Dave’s blog about it.

So, that’s nothing new.  Big deal, you say. 

No.  Dave is bang on the money with his views on mobile news.  Reading news on your mobile device is a total 100% arse.

I use my Blackberry all the time to read the news.  Only this afternoon I was sat in Caffe Uno having to SCREW about with the Blackberry to read the articles. 

Here’s how it works at the moment:

1. You visit the BBC PDA site
2. You read headline of the top story and then the first paragraph of the story
3. I click through to read the rest of the story
4. I wait for the sodding page to reload
5. [ six SODDING seconds it takes for it to reload with all the gumph and images and bbc styling ]
6. I read the article
7. I take a look at the related articles at the bottom and decide they’re not for me.  But I want to read more news, so press ‘back.
8. I scroll down and select TOP STORIES.
9. [ 7 seconds for the page to load ]

AT THIS POINT, I HAVE ONLY READ ONE PIECE OF NEWS SO FAR.  *ONE*.

10. I select a ‘top story’ and click in to read it…..Then go back to….  You know what, I really cannot be bothered to write any more, it’s that depressing.  I put up with it because, well, when I’m out and about, I want to see what’s happening.

Ok, so now…

Here’s Dave’s solution:

1. Visit BBCRiver.com.  Done.

While the BBC produces some of the best content on the web — and for mobile — Dave’s BBCRiver.com fixes it all for me, perfectly.   It’s one of those problems that I’ve been sat struggling with for years, but didn’t quite know I had.  So Kudos to Mr Winer.  Kudos.

I have added in BBCRiver.com to my bookmarks and I suggest that if you are into news on your mobile, you do the same.