Continued from An Observation on Newsprint Circulation...
Newspaper
Yes, I still read newspapers mainly for general news. Sin Chew is on my daily information consumption schedule while I do read The Star on weekends if I have time to burn. Why Sin Chew? Because I think it is quite politically neutral and being a Chinese myself, I would like to get in touch with updates on Chinese community.
Anyway, my time allocation for newspaper reading has been reduced in recent years. There are just so much information to consume via various IT-enabled channels, that I tend to scan headlines rapidly and only read into stories of my interest.
Nevertheless, I am still going to read newspaper for a foreseeable future. Neither computer (a tad troublesome to boot up sometimes) nor mobile phone (relatively uncomfortable to browse) will change my newspaper reading habit. Unless, in the future, I have news delivered to my doorstep fingertips via something like Kindle.
Online News Portal
I scan and read The Star Online on daily basis, and occasionally The Edge Malaysia. On another hand, I will visit Malaysiakini or The Malaysian Insider if only there is any interesting development on local politic scene.
On the contrary, I rarely visit Sinchew-i or any other Chinese news portal. Those sites are too cluttered to my preference. Perhaps, Chinese generally get used to "fully-compacted" sites (prove: China's websites), but certainly not me.
Due to the fact that I don't browse every news portal on regular basis, I subscribe some of their feeds (for example, technology section) just in case I miss out any updates within my area of interest.
Going back to The Star Online, did you notice that the "Most Viewed" section frequently contains UGC or (gossip) news compiled from Malay or Chinese press? This makes me think of OhmyNews, whether citizen-participatory journalism site will be feasible here. What do you think?
On mobile screens, did you know that Utusan is one of the most visited sites via mobile browser in Malaysia?
Social Media
I rely a lot on social media for genre-specific content, the same way I trust mainstream media for general news. At one point, I found myself subscribed to hundreds of blogs ranging from technology, entrepreneur, SoPo to even food blogs. Of course, the number was later reduced to a more manageable one.
One way to lighten RSS Information Overload is to have FeedDemon installed on my PC and NewsGator Go! on my mobile. With this, I can always find time to read while I am mobile while saving some of the information consumption minutes in front of the PC.
Another tool that I have started to use recently is TweetDeck, in order to follow Facebook status and Twitter updates from friends and industry experts. You will be more often then not, stumbled upon links being shared are of your interest as well.
What about you? How do you consume news?
