If this was a press release, I’d have dismissed it as a lame attempt at diverting attention from the real news (for a business news site). However, it’s an article…read “Graphisads to beautify Delhi borders“.

Even as a press release, I think it’s counter productive: makes me search for the real news…others would have just ignored it as not being relevant in a business site/paper.

I don’t think much of a person who either just copy-pastes a release, or writes the article in a manner that either makes it lose relevance, or gives it a slant that the company featured in it wants – at the cost of being lucid.

Update:  from Shefaly, this Dilbert comic strip 😀

I still haven’t got my copy of Hindustan Times’ new business paper ‘Mint’- I was supposed to hand over a slip of paper to the vendor to deliver it, and wasn’t able to catch him in time. Might go over and buy it off the stands.
There is, however, a pdf available online, of the front page, at their site www.livemint.com . Some observations on the site (will update with notes on the paper):

– The site requires registration for access, so HT’s collecting a database for advertisements. Information that is mandatory: country, city, educational background and year of birth.
– A call to action: users are asked to vote online for a story that they want more info on. That’s cross-media promotion (in a way). However, what’s disappointing is that the poll is only between noon and 3pm – isn’t polling done on an impulse? Maybe it should have been there in the morning as well.
– Reporters’ email addresses are prominently displayed in the print version (there’s a pdf on the front page on the site). Which means they’re looking for people to contact them. Good initiative.
– Social Media tools: digg, del.icio.us and newsvine(???)
– For Ye Olde Readers, CSS option to increase the font size.
– Alerts on page changes and views??? I didn’t get that.
– No option for user comments – very disappointing. That drives traction, and if they’ve got registration, they should have comments too, with warnings for inappropriate comments. In fact, I’d have been pleasantly surprised if they had an option for picking up relevant comments and showcasing them…though that might be too much of a task for the editors.
– Most viewed, most emailed and editors picks. Most viewed and most emailed are standard – I quite like the idea of editors picks.
– Advertising from Unitech and Ford – high end brands.
– No Ajax. I guess we’re spoilt by AJAX,and the easy navigation it allows. The problem, for me, is that the page looks as if it has AJAX, in terms of the design, so the lack of AJAX is disappointing.
– Quick Hits – quite like the idea, and they’ve done something similar with page 2 of the print edition.

Overall, I like the design because it is a comfortable read. I just hope it doesn’t become like an IBNlive, which started off with a clean, readable interface, and then became banner heavy. I also like it that they’ve covered the entire page, and kept a moderate font size, instead of leaving a right column empty for advertisements. I think they’re looking to charge a premium (which we’ll find out about soon, hopefully, when I talk to someone in HT)

Also, HT’s done a HUGE jacket on the Hindustan Times. Not unexpected.

A couple of days ago, I received a little booklet called the Initial Public Offer (corny) from HT. Take a look.

From HT Launches Mint at ContentSutra):

Apparently, the name Mint was chosen because they didn’t want to keep a standard name for a paper like Business, Times or Journal. In fact, the first name that they considered was ‘Orange’. HT’s Mint is a 24 pager, priced at Rs.2. The weekend edition is a 12 pager called Mint B, and with a magazine called Lounge. They’re also planning to encourage users to vote online for stories that they want deeper analysis on. Page 2, called QuickScan, lists all the stories in the paper with a short summary.
– IBNlive has a video here.

Update:

– No RSS Feeds: Can’t believe I missed this. I couldn’t find any RSS feeds! That’s archaic. Ajax is secondary – you really ought to be using each and every online distribution method: RSS syndication is a must.
– This seems to be for the PR companies: fairly comprehensive news alerts by email, including an option for whether or not the sentiment is positive or negative.

Update: Thanks Shyam. So they do have RSS feeds, but they’re not clearly visible. None of those standard orange square boxes (that you see on the right in my sidebar) on the main page, but just a link on the sidebar. My mistake – I should have spent more time searching for them. Their mistake – they should have made it more obvious. So, lots of RSS feeds there, and for all categories. That’s something I want done for every news site and blog. And preferably, for tags, not categories.

According to todays edition of The Asian Age, England coach Sven Goran Eriksson is simultaneously 20 and 55 years old.

How so? A reprint of an article in the International Herald Tribune by Rob Hughes, about the surprise selection of Theo Walcott in the England squad for the World Cup, states that (highlights and markings in the scan are mine):

Walcott turned 17 just three weeks ago. If he appears in a match at the World Cup in June, he would be younger than Wayne Rooney (the striker whose injury opens the door for him) when Rooney first played for England.

One young Swede who saw him, and was inspired by the spectacle, was a schoolboy called Eriksson.

�I know it is a gamble,� Eriksson, 55, said when he named Walcott.

[scan]

Well, Rooney first played for England in 2003, and that would make the 55 year old Eriksson 20 years old now. A search for the article online reveals that an entire paragraph had been omitted; I’ve highlighted it:

Walcott turned 17 just three weeks ago. If he appears in a match at the World Cup in June, he would be younger than Wayne Rooney (the striker whose injury opens the door for him) when Rooney first played for England.

Walcott would be younger by four months than Pele, arguably the greatest and certainly the youngest World Cup player in history. Pele starred in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden when he was 17 years and seven months. Brazil won.

One young Swede who saw him, and was inspired by the spectacle, was a schoolboy called Eriksson.

[link]

Lazy, lazy. I used to like reading the Asian Age for the international content, but over the past year or so, I’ve noticed that there are parts that don’t connect. That they randomly delete paragraphs to fit pages, I think, was first brought to our notice by the Jaibberwock in a blog post.

Just wondering:
How many of you are actually reading the papers now? With time, I’m slowly switching towards reading specific RSS feeds, and reducing my newsprint viewing. I haven’t stopped but I’m sure there’ll be a time when I’ll have switched completely to digital media. Epapers are a tedious to read, but things will improve once connectivity speeds increase. Still – you can’t read digital content on the throne. Yet. 😀