A bit of a thread resurrection, but this feels like the appropriate place to draw attention to what seems to be a chronic condition.
Here are two recent front page stories:
How an iPad Speeds Reporting from NASCAR's Pit Row
Friday May 25, 2012 11:28 am PDT by Jordan Golson
Dave Burns has been covering stock car racing from pit road for seventeen years, including spending the past twelve covering NASCAR's premiere Sprint Cup Series. These days he's a Pit Reporter for ESPN, covering Nationwide and Sprint Cup practices, qualifying, and races, all over the course of a single weekend -- every weekend -- for months at a time.
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Facebook Launches New iPhone App Dedicated to Posting and Sharing Photos
Thursday May 24, 2012 11:18 am PDT by Jordan Golson
Facebook today released a new standalone iPhone app dedicated to posting and sharing photos on the 900-million strong social network. Facebook Camera aims to make using photos on Facebook "faster and easier", according to a press release.
The app, much like the Facebook Messenger app launched last year, is designed to streamline a single Facebook feature that users are constantly interacting with, rather than using the clunkier Facebook iOS app. Photos are such a large part of Facebook that the company recently spent $1 billion to purchase photo sharing service Instagram.
Facebook built the app to make it much easier for mobile users to share multiple photos to the network -- something that is cumbersome in the standard Facebook app. Facebook Camera, made by a dedicated Photos team, streamlines browsing photos that friends have posted, a task which is all many users want to use Facebook for. From All Things D:
Facebook seems to have learned a heck of a lot from Instagram. Photos in Facebook Camera are full-bleed, spanning the entire width of the iPhones screen (which was probably tested when Facebook tweaked the photo experience for mobile last week). Youre able to comment and like photos directly from the stream. And of course, there are filters (albeit ones with names nowhere near as fun as Toaster or Valencia).
More than this, its very lightweight. The app moves much faster than browsing photos within Facebooks proper app. And by introducing a separate camera app, its another way of bypassing the cumbersome, clicky process of adding pictures via the main Facebook app.
Instagram and Facebook Camera may seem like competitors -- and within Facebook they will be, sort of. Ellis Hamburger reports for The Verge:
The Facebook Camera team has been working on the app for months, and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly kept his desire to purchase Instagram close to the vest, as if he almost impulse-bought it. Had the Instagram deal never occurred, Facebook Camera wouldn't really be much of an Instagram competitor anyway, lacking any mobile-only social circles and hashtagged sharing around specific topics. "Enhancing the Facebook photos experience on mobile is long overdue," Facebook's Derick Mains told me. "We really had to step up our game, and we're committed to building Instagram independently."
Facebook Camera is available free on the App Store.
Sadly, I think we've all come to terms with the butchering of English, but both of these articles (I would put that in quotes, but as I understand it one needs to pluck two adjectives and insert them haphazardly) seem to have a tenuous connection to what the core purpose of the site, or at least the front page, really is.
I can understand that the Facebook Camera app is potentially an important development for iOS users, but it seems to lower the bar for front page status so low as to make it effectively worthless. This wasn't a new company entering the App Store, or even a new service really. It was one existing app gaining an adjunct. Was there a similar story when ESPN expanded its offerings beyond the Sports Center app? How about when Angry Birds launches a new version? Am I going to get a rousing article if Pandora launches a special Justin Bieber streaming service (come to think of it, I
would appreciate some warning if that were to happen)?
Maybe this is something that could have been mitigated by a stronger writer. Do I really care what Facebook's longterm strategy is? Maybe, but I didn't expect to read it
here, and I certainly would have expected more than the vague musings of a writer who can't avoid colloquialisms.
The NASCAR story, however, clearly betrays a lack of editorial prowess. It has nothing to do with MacRumors. Nothing. This would be akin to writing an article about how a biologist found a way to fold proteins on their Macbook Pro. MacRumors would never have published such drivel in the past.
Of course I expect that some chorus of sycophantic posters will respond by saying, "well then just leave; no one is telling you to keep reading." Yes, that's true, I don't have to read anything here. However, I used to enjoy reading the front page here. Perhaps I was spoiled, but regardless, I don't enjoy seeing something I once liked spiral down into a "dark abyss" (there we go).
I also realize that the staff, Arn included, don't really care about my opinion, no matter how greatly the opposite is feigned. The money is still flowing, traffic is good,
most people seem to like it. If this type of writing is paying the bills, then who am I to expect a change? I just thought the site had more class.
