You may have noticed a few changes to CBCnews.ca…
New importance given to commenting and opinion sections. Comments have been flying in like crazy since they flipped the switch, and it seems readers are loving it.
Other important changes include:
Commented Tab
This tab at the top allows you to sort stories by most commented; if you have a penchant for reading comments, or want an accurate predictor of what the water cooler convo will be like tomorrow, this is a great option.
Recommended Tab
This tab sorts the stories by most recommended by readers.
Audio And Video Browser
There is now an audio and video browser at the top right of the page which allows viewers easy access to video and audio of stories, a handy step up from before when videos were just embedded randomly throughout the site. Now viewers can have a video running at the same time that they are scanning news from the rest of the site.
Your Voice
This section is now front and centre on the front page of the news site.
Reader Comments Featured on Right Sidebar/Your View
“Your View” is getting more play now as well with a big widget on the sidebar featuring scrollable reader comments.
Recommendation Icons
Icons are now embedded throughout and beside each story in order to make it easer for readers to recommend them.
Fresher Design
The overall design has been tweaked to make it a little fresher, a little crisper, and a little less busy.
What do you think of the changes?
|
Email This Post |
| CBC.ca web site |
Bland!
The CBC site still breaks horribly - and randomly - in Opera, at least on my Mac. Unless “Difficulty rendering data:[Error: name: SyntaxError message: Statement on line 145: RegExp.prototype.compile: syntax error in pattern or string Backtrace: Line 145 of linked script http://www.cbc.ca/includes/objects/core-v2/core.js var regex = new RegExp(pattern, “gm”); Line 70 of linked script http://www.cbc.ca/includes/objects/pluck/js/lineup.js _el.innerHTML = tpl_socialicons.evaluate(tpl_data); Line 94 of linked script http://sitelife.cbc.ca/ver1.0/content/direct/scripts/requestbatch.js” is intentional?
[...] Inside the CBC blog has a good rundown of the changes. These include adding the Your Voice section to the top level navigation, as well as more emphasis [...]
Thanks for the comment Crosby.
Same problems as usual — wide screen, narrow content. I’ve complained about it before, but it seems the CBC Web creators still don’t have wide-screen monitors like the CBC TV producers have…
BTW, comments are working fine without Javascript nowadays. Thanx, Tod!
–Bob.
Sounds like the whole shebang is becoming a “Your Voice” - will we still be able to read news & schedules? Or will listeners/viewers take over completely, to read each others’ comments? The whole thing may encourage more visitors, but methinks it doesn’t bode well for the online rep of the Morther Corp itself.
Doesn’t work in Opera. The comments section always throws a bunch of errors when the page loads.
Bob, not everyone has wide monitors like you do. The site is designed for a 1024 screen resolution. Smarten up.
Rick, viewing the CBC news site on a wide-screen monitor is merely ugly. Viewing the CBC news site on a portable device (phone, PDA) is impossible.
Looking under the hood, it’s nice to see that the CBC news page hasn’t been formatted with tables. This means it is entirely possible for the site to use a “liquid layout”, where the text and images flow around to use however much screen width is available.
Designing a web site for one specific resolution is like building a road for only one model of car. It can be done, but you’ll lose traffic.
–Bob.
This ablility to comment has made a respected and legitimate news source a place for uninformed opinion and name calling. The CBC should be leading the audience up, not following it down. And ironically this is my opinion and I have spread to the world.