The next obsolete site - CNNSI

I'm a news junkie, I collect my news from various sources on the web. When it comes to sports, I would visit cnnsi.com and pick up the headlines. That was then, now like other old media companies they haven't stayed ahead of the curve. Other sites feature live streaming comments from the Phoenix court about Balsillie and the NHL (thanks TSN), commenting on each article, and more up to the minute statuses for my fantasy football lineups. CNNSI sources their material from sources such as AP and STATS, providing only limited original material beyond editorials. What happened to the site that was cutting edge?

Not only have other sites such as TSN, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports and ESPN passed by CNNSI in terms of up to date and immediate content, but the quality of the site has dropped substantially. I have featured the CNNSI site many times in the "Quality Issue of Day" and have started to wonder if they have anyone on staff that validates the quality of the pages as content is streamed from Banks, King, and Trotter. I would understand if the page is not exactly correct in the "low hanging fruit" of the browser world. But for it not to work in Internet Explorer 8? Come on, how many times will badly rendered pages go unnoticed before action is taken to prevent them in the first place?

I have to speculate that CNNSI is using a CMS (content management system) to push the editorials, headlines and new slide shows out to the web, so they must assume that it's just content and the structure of the page will be fine so why test it.

Here is the latest....

I can't blame CNNSI completely, especially when their parent company CNN is struggling in the new media realm. It was the leader in the field, broadcasting news in a 24 hour format long before anyone else (1992), now they struggle to create an identity in the new media universe. They spend most of their time, repeating tweets and comments posted by their viewers and their evenings are filled mostly with repeats of shows aired earlier in the day. Their Headlines News network now offers "News and Views" rather than the 24 hour news format that once was their specialty. Somewhere along the line, they lost their vision that "a viewer could tune in at any time and, in just 30 minutes, receive the most popular national and international stories"; now they only air news during the day (when no one is watching?).

According to Hitwise data in July 2009, CNNSI didn't even register in the listing of top ten sports sites. Until CNNSI steps up and reestablishes itself as a leader in sports arena in both quality and content, count me out.