Marco.org

I’m : a programmer, writer, podcaster, geek, and coffee enthusiast.

More ideas than time: Last week’s news

Most news outlets, including TV news shows and networks, newspapers, news websites, and blogs are targeted at news junkies: they never want to miss a story, and they want to be the first to report it to you.

If you look back on these stories even one week later, the majority of them seem unimportant or redundant in retrospect. And if you stop consuming the firehose for a few days or more, you’re lost — there are very few publications that give a general overview of what has happened, especially when venturing outside of mainstream front-page news and into a subsection, such as technology news.

I want last week’s news, but only what I need to know, and only if it has proven to have relevance beyond the day it was published.

Tell me an overview of what happened in a given field, like technology, but with the hindsight of a week to sleep on it and evaluate what really matters. The delay also provides more time for investigation and analysis to reduce blind speculation, promote thoughtful writing, and encourage big-picture perspective.

Don’t give me any “breaking” information or up-to-the-minute stories. Mentioning any event that happened less than 7 days ago is strictly prohibited.

The result would likely have far less content than most news sites. Some weeks may not have any content at all. And that’s OK.

Someday, maybe I’ll start this site for technology news. But I bet I’ll never get to it, and I’d love for someone else to beat me to it.

(Previous idea: Logarithmic calendar view.)