Here is the news…
Starting today F1 Fanatic will be offering more Formula 1 news.
These stories will be listed under ‘News in brief’ on the right-hand side of the site, and as you can see that box has been re-designed to fit more content in.
Hang on, isn’t this a blog? Why have you added a news service?
The blog will continue as usual but I want F1 Fanatic to offer more than blog content, including video, forums and news. This is another step towards that.
However these stories will all be ‘comment-able’, just as they are on the blog, offering a greater depth of interactivity that few other F1 news sites offer.
Who writes it?
The articles are supplied by motoring news agency GMM’s team of writers, who also supply news to other F1 sites. They are all checked by me before being published here.
The news content will be supplied on trial until the end of November, after which I’ll decide whether or not to continue with it.
You’ve crashed my feed reader!
All this new material does mean that the F1 Fanatic RSS Feed will be putting on some weight.
I could offer a ‘non-news’ version of the feed if people are interested, so if that’s something you’d like to see, please leave a comment below.
sidepodcast said on 22nd November 2008, 23:12
“Anyway, to be clear: no reduction in original content (aside from the unavoidable off-season slow-down), and a non-news feed is high on to-do list.”
thank you :)
francois said on 23rd November 2008, 0:55
I’d also really like to see at least non-news feed and it would be a much better idea if all the news articles were grouped together into a section of their own away from the regular blog pieces.
I’m a bit unsure about the news articles being lumped with the main content because it’s not really why I read F1Fanatic.If I wanted to read stories I’d use Autosport or possibly Grandprix.com.I’m looking for mainly opinion here and you’ve done some excellent pieces since I started reading regularly in the middle of last season.
Ollie said on 23rd November 2008, 0:57
Interesting discussion here guys. I have to ask though, why GMM and not yourself? Why not write the news articles yourself with your own take and unique perspective? If time is the issue, then is there not someone you could ‘employ’ to write the newsy posts? The thing about blogging is that it seems much more personal than Autosport or BBC News, which sets us apart from the MSM. And that is what would be lacking with content written by someone who isn’t emotionally attached to this site.
As always, just my two penneth worth – a separate feed would be good though – if I want hum-drum news I’ll read Pitpass (or my own site! :P )
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 23rd November 2008, 1:30
Ollie – There’s no way I could take on that much work by myself, and paying another contributor wouldn’t be cost-effective. (And don’t call your own site ‘hum-drum’!)
sidepodcast said on 23rd November 2008, 1:35
here’s a thought, having mulled over it for a while.
could you not take an alternative approach and remove the news items from the normal feed using something like ‘wp category excluder’ plugin?
then provide a separate news feed for anyone to subscribe to should they want the newly provided info?
that way gmm won’t be pushed onto subscribers unwittingly.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 23rd November 2008, 1:43
I’ll check the click through rate from the original feed between now and the end of the trial before I make that decision. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ollie said on 24th November 2008, 12:31
Or add a query line to the loop – more on the codex.
By the way, tried to post code in ‘code’ tags, but didn’t work. Also tried ‘pre’ and `backticks`.
GR said on 24th November 2008, 13:54
I don’t know what all the fuss is about – I’m sure that using a news feed will be well managed by you, as with all things on your site.
Personally, I mainly visit your site for the excellent unique and personal posts you and your guests write. So long as I can clearly get access to to them (ie the home page isn’t cluttered up) then I’m happy!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 24th November 2008, 21:21
The reduced feed is now available – find it here: Get the latest from F1Fanatic
Monkzie said on 25th November 2008, 0:13
Well, here’s my penny’s worth – Keith, I think it’s a great idea. I’ve read the opinions of the other bloggers and am happy that you’re going to check each story for ‘quality control’. I have very little time each day to read up on F1 news, and sometimes 2-3 days go by before I get to check for news. So the fact that I can get the ‘total mix’ of news, original articles and a blog on the same site is music to my ears. Good luck with the trial Keith…
guille2306 said on 25th November 2008, 1:13
At the beginning I had my concerns about this (not another everybody-has-the-same-news website, please!), but I quickly realized that this site has something the others don’t: a great community to talk about the news. I’m tired of reading something and having nobody else to talk about it…
Mi recipe to read many news sites is: read first the more attractive one (because of information and/or interaction), and then filter the titles of the others. Now your site will be the first in the ‘news’ list Keith :-)
As long as you keep-up with the original work, I’m happy