Putting the news into news.com.au
Sometimes, when I read news.com.au, I feel like bashing my head on the desk.
While it might be Australia’s most visited news site, the word “news” too often feels like it deserves to be put in quotation marks.
At times, it seems little more than a reliable snapshot of the front page of Reddit 12 hours earlier.
A recent low was its lengthy treatise on how to do the washing up.
Spot on. I rarely read the Herald-Sun as so much of it is day to two day old reddit stories.
And I thought I was the only one! I guess this is what it feels like when doves cry…
The content over at news.com.au is typical bogan pandering. It’s the A Current Affairs/Today Tonight of the web- tabloid and infomercial fodder masquerading as a news source.
News.com.au seems to be Buzzfeed these days. Which also stocks its stuff from Reddit.
The list is pure link bait but yes it is helpful.
What would have been more helpful is a Syria section, a place for all the articles to live so someone who wants to know more can easily find.
Ash, if you’re after world news, don’t go to news.com.au
News.com.au usually takes much of the content from Buzz Feed and Reddit and re brands it with similar content and similar titles. I also notice they syndicate video content from word star hip hop as well (WSHH usually gets video assets very quickly) NineMSN also seems to take heaps of content from WSHH.
Overall it is mass market approach, not a niche publishing approach. Traffic is going up and up with all the link bait titles and content as well from an organic search point of view – http://www.semrush.com/au/info/news.com.au
I’m sick or reading “articles” about letters from employees to their bosses / breaking up partners / parents to their gay son / offensive restaurant receipts / funny signs at shops etc that have “gone viral”. There is at least one on news.com.au every day. Chances are if they’ve gone viral we’ve seen them elsewhere already. People go to a news site because they want to read news
eyeballs, clicks, lower common denominator content. hack trash press. listicles. hyper volume content put it up, see if its sticking/driving traffic, if not, put up another click-baity piece, and the cycle continues…..