Gizmodo, LifeHacker, and The Consumerist used to be my daily reading back when they were high quality sites 15+ years ago.
Thanks for posting this to HN, because I'm bookmarking LH and willing to give it another go.
Thanks for posting this to HN, because I'm bookmarking LH and willing to give it another go.
I remember when the original founder (Gina Trapani) stepped aside, it sounded to me like she was burnt out on the "post 76786 updates a day, no matter what" business model that they'd found themselves stuck with... although, she was the one at the helm, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The idea of posting about multiple new "life hacks" per freaking day is just so obviously absurd. Life is hackable but not that hackable.
Hell, I wouldn't mind a much slower version of that site. 1-2 thoughtful articles a week. Then maybe 1-2 roundup posts of smaller news items.
Call it Slowhacker.
I like that name! In the same vein I wish there were a site Slownews with, say, weekly or biweekly summaries & in-depth analyses of what's happening in the world (politics, economics et cetera). Sure, lots of things are happening around the world all the time but most of them are just noise. And even if they're not noise and very relevant to me, it usually takes the media a day or two to go beyond the breaking-news!-I-have-no-idea-what's-happening-and-yet-I-am-reporting-about-it quality level and piece together everything into a coherent analysis. But, by that time, no one is spelling out the essential facts anymore because journalists silently assume you've been following the 24/7 news cycle all along.
But doing that just feels exhausting.
I had a wonderful zero clutter Google Reader setup and would consume these from there.
The pace of writing was manageable and I didn't feel like I was drowning trying to drink from a firehose.
The quality was high and I often learned something new and of value.
On the internet, things were just simpler. And I feel really old saying that.
Then there was Kotaku, their video game blog. It was the only site I ever got a comment ban on. I’d been a commenter for a few years, since the day they added them to the site. Then one day they posted a headline like “Pikmin comes to the DS” (or maybe 3ds I forget.) I click through and it’s basically a write up about someone who made a Pikmin picture/drawing using the handheld (something like that, my memory is vague on the details)
Which was annoying because Kotaku quality was generally not too click bait-ish and I said this in a comment. I got banned. I remember the editor who did it, Brian Crecente.
On the one hand their comments sections were generally non-toxic. On the other hand they had absolutely no tolerance, albeit sporadically applied, to critical opinions. Of course that’s their right, but it also made me wonder what other legitimate conversation they might be banning, and soured me on the site.
Despite this I’ll say Brian Crecente was a pretty good games journalist, and I kno many sites especially at that time were struggling with how to introduce comments without it turning into a waste dump.
Original Gawker may have been special but towards the end they had already become a lazy aggregator chasing Buzzfeed's audience.
Or I guess I should say "y frgt th bst frm f cmmnt mdrtn" ;)
(it was a common tool used to take care of easy trolls like 'Why is this on Consumerist?')