What then would make a dedicated news forum different?
That is a hard question. So I was thinking what to I want to see from an Apple news page? And here are a few points that could be incorprated in.
1. Organised archiving of the news.
All news articles would be organised into destinct categories.
The latest so many news articles would be on the front news page. And the rest (all the stuff that is older than the front page) would be archived into the relevant categories. So say you want to read about some OS X news. You don't have to search through 1000+ news articles. You can just click OS X articles and boom. There they all are.
2. An image search. As in news articles could be entered into more than one category. And one of these caregories could be "news articles with an image attached". So then you could do a search for say hypothetically all news articles with an image and about OS X and you'd get it.
3. A search of the articles by title keyword or author or date posted. I think points 1-3 can be rolled into one big news search feature and it'd work fine.
4. Active moderation of comments of any after each news article. On too many news article comments I've just seen spam. I know it'd take a lot to moderate these comments. But it'd make the news page more respectable.
But if the news articles on the news page are also posted in the forums, then I'd like a link to the relevant forum topic. So it's easy to read people's comments and post comments yourself. And of cause the forum would be moderated to remove all the spam.
5. A blog. I know it's not news per sé. But people like to read a light hearted take on the weeks news. I know the Macworld website has the Macalope. But I would prefer a blog where each time a different member of the forum community posts up a blog. It does not have to be super professionally written. Just the members thoughts and I'm sure a little fix up by a news article writer and it'll be ready to go. I think my point here is a blog where the whole forum community has a chance to partake and not just one person always.
6. A timer countdown clock to the next big Apple event. And if there is more then one event scheduled then more then one clock. Like 2 days 5 hours 45 mins left till the SJ keynote at WWDC for example. But any confirmed keynore or interview or TV show etc involving Apple staff could be there. Then you would know I can prepare my life so I can be online during the live updates of the Apple events that matter to me.
7. A news page designed without flash and to look good on Apple mobile devices as well as the average desktop and notebook computer. We can't assume all readers will be Apple users. A lot of potential switchers could read the news here too.
8. Maybe a poll on the side so we could get some reader feedback and keep the news page always right intune with what the readers needs are. THis would help but it's purely optional.
9. Here is an idea. Totally wacky one. The entire news page works with the above points but it is totally blog based. I'll have to explain this one.
The first part of each news article is the hardcore news. The facts. What we all want to hear about. And the 2nd half is a blog by the author of the article. Saying his felings and thoughts on the article. And different people can contribute to the news or blogs or both. I do like the idea of getting as many people involved as possible. But moderated of cause so a professional standard is kept.
10. A contact email address on the news page. So if "Joe Public" has information on a new breaking Apple story, we could try to validate the source then post it. In short allowing the public to share their Apple news with us.
That is all I can think of now. Just a few ideas I had to make our proposed news page different to all the rest. If I can think of any more ideas I'll post them.