Latin America News (Kleph's attempt at a South American news resource)

[kleph]

alright guys, as part of my new years resolutions (http://forums.zgeek.com/showthread.php?t=27826), i have to get very savvy on the goings on across south america pretty fast.

as part of that i have started a news blog Latin America News (http://latinamericanewslinks.blogspot.com/).

This is simply a list of links of stories I have come across in my daily research. I make no pretense of it being a complete overview or particularly concerned with specialized topics. But, I hope, it gives a pretty good snapshot of the major news items from across the continent.

The ideal objective is to create a news blog that is a resource for finding English-language stories covering the entire continent. But I don't know if I have the time or energy to keep the project going.

So, for now, I am leaving it on Blogspot. If it seems workable I will transfer it over to kleph.com (http://www.kleph.com/) in the future.

What I could use from you guys is some critiquing of what I have got - What do you think of the site? What can be done to make it better? What do you like and not like?

I will discuss some of my limitations and difficulties in producing this resource (and how I might possibly overcome them) if you guys give me some input.

[StygiaN]

Looks pretty cool mate, no constructive criticism from me ;)

[sagit]

simple front page. simple good.

couple of minor points.

- perhaps have a just slightly dark (perhaps a light grey) background rather than the white one. makes it easier on the eyes. also can see some of the links better.
- make sure the links point to the right places (and are labelled correctly). theres a story currently to do with coffee (what else am i gonna check out?) that is listed sourced from the "International Herald Tribune" but the link goes to "economictimes.indiatimes.com". The story is in fact at the linked site. Couldnt find anything at IHT about it.

[kleph]

simple front page. simple good.

it is the most basic template i could use that blogger had offered. i tinkered with it a bit but wanted to keep the proceedings lean and mean.

perhaps have a just slightly dark (perhaps a light grey) background rather than the white one. makes it easier on the eyes. also can see some of the links better. .

it had a light brown background but it was even harder to see. i dickered with it a bit and went with white for the simple reason of immediacy. i want this to have the sense of a newspaper and that comes through with this color scheme.

but, if you can find examples of something else that works, please provide a link.

make sure the links point to the right places (and are labelled correctly). theres a story currently to do with coffee (what else am i gonna check out?) that is listed sourced from the "International Herald Tribune" but the link goes to "economictimes.indiatimes.com". The story is in fact at the linked site. Couldnt find anything at IHT about it.

the key to doing this is cutting down the time investment. currently it takes a hour and a half to two hours to go through the stories and set up the page. thats a bitch. and i really dont have the time to go through a double check of everything when i am done.

i simply use cut and paste with most of the links so they should be solid but the weirdness of some sites can make this go awry.

on the plus side, i know that the links are actually of limited importance with a site like this. if folks are interested in using this as a regular resource, they more want the blurbs than the stories themselves.

again, if you know of any type of site online that will run checks for links, please let me know.

[kleph]

make sure the links point to the right places (and are labelled correctly). theres a story currently to do with coffee (what else am i gonna check out?) that is listed sourced from the "International Herald Tribune" but the link goes to "economictimes.indiatimes.com". The story is in fact at the linked site. Couldnt find anything at IHT about it.

just checked this and fixed it.

but along these lines, what often happens is different online publications will publish stories that were produced by other sources. my policy is to credit the original source. so if the long beach press-telegram has posted a story by the associated press, the AP gets the nod.