A Cacophony of Content

I’ve had MSNBC as my home page for five years, or more. It has served me well given the range of sources from which the news portal derives its 24/7 fare.

One would expect to see a selection from NBC’s news programs, and its siblings CNBC, MSNBC-TV and the network’s local broadcast affiliates. Add to that the Washington Post and Newsweek, Business Week, the major wire services, MSNBC.com’s own reporting, and soon, in a deal announced yesterday, the fab feature material from CondeNet. Ad Age reports:

“Included in the new partnership are CondeNet sites Style.com, Men.Style.com, Epicurious.com and Concierge.com, as well as content from Conde Nast mags Vogue, Glamour, Self, GQ, Details, Men’s Vogue, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler and Conde Nast Portfolio.”

Now it ain’t The Week or even Google News, and it doesn’t serve the same purpose as my RSS reader, but the editors at MSNBC.com are blessed with some of the best sources of news, feature and multimedia content around today from which to concoct (i.e., package) what may be the Web’s most authoritative and complete online news destinations (in spite of the Hulu’s great expectations).

Now the site just needs to cut a deal with SI for sports, cajole the Scooper Jeannette Walls back to the fold, and get rid of that annoying Palm ad that intrusively unfolds from the top of the home page marginalizing the day’s headlines.