The Last Podcast

I have to say that I am pretty impressed by some of the developments over at the New York Times.

Not only did they launch a revamped version of the Technology section today, but they also finally integrated Blogrunner, which they bought last year into their portfolio.

The New York Times Bits blog calls Blogrunner the “Robot in the Newsroom and describes it as follows:

It has something in common with Digg, the site on which readers vote on what articles they find interesting. But for Blogrunner, votes are links from blogs or other Web sites. This approach, of course, is what powers the PageRank algorithm of Google, and Techmeme, an excellent technology news site.

It is  no surprise that Techmeme gets a mention here. Basically, Blogrunner is a Techmeme clone. However, I have to give them that it is a pretty effective, and well designed Techmeme clone. Also, unlike other clones, it seems to update very quickly (Tailrank is mainly good for checking yesterday’s news). It’s funny though that Blogrunner or the NYTimes don’t show up on it yet, while the news is prominently featured on Techmeme.

A few nagging problems I see with the site: As a blogger who tends to get few headlines on Techmeme but has frequently made the b-line, I don’t like that Blogrunner mostly focuses on the headlines and does group the discussion very well.

Also, the layout is highly vertical. Most of the interesting content is on the left side, but it feels cramped. With a slightly wider design, Blogrunner could feature more of the conversation and slightly less of the headlines.

Overall, though, I am pretty impressed, but Techmeme remains the better site (for now).