Thing #12

I like Digg's format better than Reddit's. I also like that they have much more than one option for gender, including "bird" and "transsexual". I think these are great tools for libraries. It's hard to scan a million newspapers everyday. This makes news even more fun, in a way a little less depressing, and it's interesting to see how many people respond to a news item. Since there are tons of people submitting news, one reader would never be able to glean all these news items from one source. It would take all day. I like that they have abstracts and pictures. And links to the articles, although sometimes the site wants you to logon or register, which I hate doing.
I also like that it separates the news into categories, like offbeat (which is the first thing I go to) and sports (which I avoid like the plague).
I also like that there are pictures that count as news items. It's hard to say whether the videos are worth a watch. I don't have the attention span for video. Video news, video art, etc. I can't watch it.
I added a piece of news that was on Ira Glass' (swoon) This American Life about two boys that went missing and when one turned out he was claimed by the wrong family but it was never righted until this family member started researching it and found out the truth which everyone was pissed about.
I see these tools as being either productivity enhancers or distractors. For me, probably enhancer, but I could see that line being crossed without even knowing it.
I have read articles-by read I mean scanned-because of these tools. I also have found websites I wouldn't have known of before to add to my Google reader.