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Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

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Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#111

Post by riedel »

diodesign wrote: post #47

Hello, I'm Chris Williams, the editor of The Register. Maybe I can answer some of these Qs. > what caused this transformation? All things have to evolve and move with the times. As you've said, we were known, for example, for "intentionally-obscure headlines." Guess what, that works for some people - and it was fun - but it was holding us back reaching many more people, not just from the headline tone but also aggreg…

I think it is good that independent media outlets transition rather than die. I liked the old days better, but I truly admit that ppl like me that came once in a while (mostly to get a totally different view in a very concrete news item) wouldn't pay your bills. For me the the tone was the USP: it signalled clearly independence from the copy and paste rest. Probably today you could achieve sth very similar with a language model, so you were probably wise to abandon it, before all other news site would have looked like yours. Still some how I believe that this could have been the better reality.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#112

Post by Angostura »

speedbird wrote: post #85
bennyp101 wrote: post #12

I used to visit it everyday from the early 2000's, but I don't think I have really visited in the last 3-4 years. I can't put a finger on it, but the writing and then subsequently the comments (which were always fun) kinda started falling off. I still have it in my bookmark bar, but as I still cant get the favicon to load properly in Firefox, I forget to click on it :)

Same. Used to really like some of the old stuff, like Lewis’s, but these days I only visit if an item is linked from here.

Ah, Lewis’ old diatribes about how climate change was trash.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#113

Post by sn0w_monkie »

Churnalism as an industry is very broken sadly T_T. Advertisers want to see engagement and the easiest way to do that is to suck up to Google SEO and pump more articles on the daily. Original and accurate reporting is expensive to produce. Only the biggest publishers or ones that are well funded can afford to do this. So in order to get the reader's eyeballs and clicks, the guys in the middle and bottom tiers have to crank out news and end up rehashing what has already been broken by bigger orgs. That's why The Register mostly looks like any other mediocre tech site now. I know someone who used to be a reporter and they got tired of having to rewrite stories for little pay.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#114

Post by Bakary »

silasdavis wrote: post #108
anthk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaniard here. Back in the day we had Slashdot (most IT/science educated guys in Spain can at least read English because of obvious requeriments on academia) and a Spanish analogue, Barrapunto (same meaning, slash/bar and punto/dot/point). A literal clone, with quality comments and lots of folks teaching and learning at. Later, a Digg clone appeared, Menéame (lit. "shake me"), a Digg clone to share/aggregate news. Bu…

Classic missing the punto HN side comment (sorry), but as a británico learning Spanish I thought it would be good to try and learn the Spanish keyboard layout. Barra punto is horribly hard to type. I keep having to switch when I want to run something in CWD. I do appreciate the dedicated jamón key though.

As someone who needs to cycle between multiple languages I fully recommend the use of the "US international" layout in this scenario

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#116

Post by gerdesj »

diodesign wrote: post #47

Hello, I'm Chris Williams, the editor of The Register. Maybe I can answer some of these Qs. > what caused this transformation? All things have to evolve and move with the times. As you've said, we were known, for example, for "intentionally-obscure headlines." Guess what, that works for some people - and it was fun - but it was holding us back reaching many more people, not just from the headline tone but also aggreg…

I've been a British reader of el Reg for roughly 20 years. Please do remember where you came from and how your brand came to differentiate itself.

You have aggressively used the word "folks" without a license 8)

el Reg has always had a tone and attitude all of its own. Let's face it the forums are pretty functionally crap and yet it sort of works.

Mess with the format at your peril - make the forums/comments work effectively ... that would be nice.

I have no idea why you insist on calling it "the Reg", it's currently "el Reg" due to the Spanish influence unless you can do better ...

Do you remember say "Eadon"? or a Canadian bloke with a decently potty mouth (Trev).

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#117

Post by MandieD »

Veen wrote: post #72
Andwalle wrote: post #30

Andrew Orlowski! He writes for the Daily Telegraph, which is the UKs equivalent of Fox News. Everything is uphill from there

The Telegraph is nothing like Fox News, except insofar as it is a center-right publication. The tone, quality, and perspective are utterly different.

The Telegraph is more like the Wall Street Journal, yet another Murdoch-owned media property.

The Daily Express is like Fox News.

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#118

Post by flarg »

diodesign wrote: post #47

Hello, I'm Chris Williams, the editor of The Register. Maybe I can answer some of these Qs. > what caused this transformation? All things have to evolve and move with the times. As you've said, we were known, for example, for "intentionally-obscure headlines." Guess what, that works for some people - and it was fun - but it was holding us back reaching many more people, not just from the headline tone but also aggreg…

I fully support your change in approach. The Reg was always a solid source of information and opinion but the jokey headlines were, IMHO, often off putting in my later years. You finally graduated out of the frat house!

Re: Ask HN: What happened to theregister.com?

#119

Post by ttctciyf »

diodesign wrote: post #47

Hello, I'm Chris Williams, the editor of The Register. Maybe I can answer some of these Qs. > what caused this transformation? All things have to evolve and move with the times. As you've said, we were known, for example, for "intentionally-obscure headlines." Guess what, that works for some people - and it was fun - but it was holding us back reaching many more people, not just from the headline tone but also aggreg…

Just wanted to say thanks for the many chuckles I've had over your knowing tabloidese headline pastiches over the years. Hope they'll continue to make occasional appearances.
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