Yahoo! Buzz Is Not Buzz-Worthy

You may have heard of Digg, a site where users submit stories and rate them, and the highest-rated stories hit the front page. (Slashdot and Fark are similar.)

Yahoo! now has its own version, called Yahoo! Buzz. It has a few problems.

For one, the titles are short, as are the descriptions. Most titles are 6 words or less, and the descriptions are less than 20. And since so many stories start with fluff or backstory, 17 words of description often isn’t enough to elucidate the story.

Also, various links and stats on each story don’t show up until you mouse over them. Which keeps the site clean, granted, but I was mystified about why stories were popular until I accidentally moused over one and “9 Votes” appeared next to it. (Incidentally, why “Votes” instead of “votes”?)

And there’s a big Flash navigation bar at the top, which loaded in a full 10 seconds on my ultra-fast FiOS line, and shows stories just as cramped as those in the main story list.

Overall, it’s an okay site. It’s just frustrating and superfluous. I can’t think of anyone I’d recommend it to.