The long overdue redesign of TheStreet.com is up.
It looks to be a modest improvement over the sprawling mess of the old site. It will take me a few days to figure out if it is very much of an improvement.
Both TheStreet.com‘s original content and Seeking Alpha‘s aggregation have overwhelmed me with an immense amount of content. Its reached the point that I no longer find myself reading anything off of the home page — it slides off way too quickly as new articles are added. Rather, what I end up doing is reading specific writers (Kass, Helene, Shark, etc.).
Over time, I have created my own list of go to guys: Monoline Insurers? Yves Smith’s naked capitalism. Mortgage lenders? Calculated Risk. Dow theory? Richard Russell. Earning analysis? Zachs, and Bespoke Group. etc. etc. etc.
Is this a broad trend? I suspect I am not the only one who approaches information gathering / analysis in discrete bites.
Sometimes, less is more . . .
Good observation. I just canceled me Real Money subscription. Too much crap, like Marcin touting his holdings, etc. Also tired of Cramers rantings front and center and found that most posts were available on the free site shortly after. What you are relly saying is that there is more “hard news” to evaluate and digest on the other sites versus opinion. The only way to use The Street is to pick who you want to follow so that you can track their observations and advice.
br, i think the new site is no improvement and will continue to avoid most of it. In a perfect world you could feed to just the writers you want, oh, were there, my bad! I guess Cramer can sell books and tv shows as news sites become less relevant, so cancel the charity event.
Thestreet.com = Too much Cramer
I’d like it better if it didn’t take about 10 seconds to load all that junk.
In appearance, it reminds me of Craigslist ;-)
I read most my financial news in an rss reader. Thus, I don’t miss stories because they dropped off the page.
TSC doesn’t have a rss feed that I can find, probably because they want you on the site to read the ads. Their lack of rss feeds will hurt them long-term.
Like you, I go to different sites for specific news. TSC is great for fast-breaking market action and hey, I enjoy Cramer’s rants as much as anyone.
Good observation. I deal with information/analysis in the same way. Theme oriented or specialized sites or blogs, selected for quality of writing, careful analysis and intelligent truth-seeking are vastly superior to the traditional motley form of non-academic/non-specialized information distribution. The old media/information model of a few little things for everyone doesn’t cut it in the age of instantaneous, technologically enabled, customized precision.
I don’t mind “too much info”, but I’m very tired of Web 2.0 crap. So looking forward to Web 3.0.
Every page has a clunky Flash launcher and tabs of streaming garbage. Thankfully, I run AdBlock and NoScript in Firefox so I don’t see Ads or most Flash crap, but the holes sometimes show up and it always reminds me of how I loathe the abuse of the latest technology.
That said, there are a few excellent writers on TheStreet.com.
Actually for my nickel I like this site. The links are great.
I can pop over to Roubini, CR, Kirk, Jeff Mathews, Bill Cara etc.
Bloomies is good for some interviews. AME features Marc Faber. Try never to miss a Jim Rogers interview. Paul Kasriel at NT is straight foreward. Saut at Raymond James is a must read.
Love Flec and a new kid I have respect for is Henry To at market thoughts.
But Barry is ma heerow!!!
Web 2.0 crap was my first thought too. Looks a lot like the new rotten tomatoes design that everybody hates.
TSC is like a supermarket, there is some trash ie gigantic egos who beleive their own hype and some excellent contributors whose analysis is thoughtful and educational.
on the broad balance this persuaded me to renew my annual sub. eg I loved Howards Simons anaysis of the USD becoming the new carry trade currency.
I’m sure comparisons of the old Real Money site to the inside of Jim Cramer’s head are unwarranted…
I am in larry’s (first comment) camp. I ditched RealMoney at the end of December, and like getting rid of cable seven years ago, that’ll be another decision I’ll never regret. As for Marcin, he is the ultimate pumpo-and-dump artist.
The Big Picture is #2, a hair behind Calculated Risk in terms of econ blogs ranked by average daily page views according to Gongol.com.
As much as I can’t stand JC, the site mod is a definite improvement. Now they are on par with others (for whatever that’s worth), whereas before they were absolutely laughable. What they should also do is fire their headline writer(s) who employ too much alliteration (stacks of it!) and failed attempts at wit. All that said, I will still not be a site visitor; their articles are base, JC is absolutely insane and his contradictory videos prove it day after day, and Altucher is such a suck-up it makes me want to gag (especially on THIS WEEK’S TOP 10 ROCKET STOCKS!).
I’ll be done with Real Money when My sub runs out. How about the endless babble over cell phones? It takes up about 50% of the comments on an average day. Minyanville is a lot better in providing useful info during the day.
As a loyal member since 1998/1999 I’ve gotten used to the focus being on the quality of the writers. The focus now seems to have shifted to banner ads and pop-ups. I think paying a couple hundred dollars a year should “give” us a largely ad-free experience. Not pleased at all.
At first glance, the new TSC site does nothing for me. I was a Street Insight sub who rolled over to RM Silver. I’m a part time trader and I liked the Silver chronological format for an end of the day look at the direction of the comment and reaction as well as not losing any content off the page. But I couldn’t see paying for newsletters that never worked for me just to get two additional columnists. RM stripped down with no graphics, chronogical order to the posts and a week’s archive floats my boat. Oh well…
You’re spot on. Kevin Kelly addresses this topic very thoroughly in his lifestream blog. http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php
The new site is horrible! No concept of design at all. Did they ask users for feedback? Who designed it–that’s what I want to know. That light blue background fading to white is painful. Looks like a Vegas chapel. Poor taste! Too bad they can’t organize the great content in a visually compelling way.
I just use my iGoogle page and add specific content (like Big Picture)via RSS….really keeps me focused
We dropped RealMoney subscription last summer after having been members for over 10 years. It finally got to where we were only reading a few of the writers and decided to no longer pay for a site whose overriding factor was annoying flashing ads. We wrote to them several times and got no response. Too much good stuff out there and many good writers whose sites are free.
Thanks Barry for what you do here.
Looks like they face lifted from fool.com.
They dropped the Economic Calendar? Too depressing, right?
Too much graphic flashbang, too hard to find and stay on the text. A stripped-down TSC version would be worth paying for. Not this current burlesque show.
I agree the new Street.com redesign is garbage! Its absolutely horendous, I’ve been a faithful street.com user from 2000 to 2007. After the redesign no longer! I must now find a new site to use because they really screwed up this redesign. I spend two minutes on the site and get a migraine from all the visual garbage on the screen. Before i used to easily find information and articles. Now its a bunch of visual diarhea.