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I know a few people that use the teletext almost exclusively instead of watching TV. Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information

by gutnor 11y ago

I know a few people that use the teletext almost exclusively instead of watching TV. Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information consumption: you get the top news, the sport result, recipes, meteo, ... Until recently (smartphone and social apps), that covered 90% of what a lot of people would do with their internet connection.

chestnut-tree 11y ago
"Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information consumption" I agree. Teletext feels like it would have been a perfect service for a mobile phone. In the UK, the BBC stopped transmission of their teletext service (Ceefax) in 2012. One of the limitations of the service for writers was that it could only display four paragraphs of text on a single screen. This meant any news or sport story had to include all the key points in just those four paragraphs. This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. (It's actually a great writing exercise to try on any news or sport story, or even essay) Now in the digital age we have apps like Yahoo Digest/Summly that give you concise summaries of the news with large photos (after you've downloaded the 30mb phone app). But teletext did plain, concise text from the start (with real writers) because of the constraints of the technology. And those constraints turned out to be a large part of the appeal of teletext.
- cbd1984 11y ago
  > This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. ... and remove any context, even more than they already do. Don't we always complain about how computer and tech pieces are too simplistic and outright wrong, but catchy?
- Mahn 11y ago
  > This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. We need to bring teletext back.
  - skrause 11y ago
    It's still strong in Germany and even available over the web (http://www.ard-text.de/ http://www.ard-text.de/) and a mobile-friendly site with the same content: http://www.ard-text.de/mobil/100 http://www.ard-text.de/mobil/100
  - SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
    Seems like a startup opportunity to me - citizen journalism somewhere between Twitter and Medium. 4 paragraphs, 1 image per story. I'd sign up.
    - oakesm9 11y ago
      This is pretty close https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page
  - brusch64 11y ago
    Here a link to the ORF(Austrian Broadcast Station) teletext: http://teletext.orf.at/ http://teletext.orf.at/ I don't like it, I prefer more thorough news. For me the problem with reading news is not that the writers are writing too long winded, but that they don't give you enough background information.
blubb-fish 11y ago
I guess it addresses a fundamental desire for calmness and simplicity - most likely similar to what drives some nerds towards attempting to do as much as possible in a text based way and in a terminal. It's like the Linux Shell for people who never even heard of Linux.

by gutnor 11y ago

chestnut-tree 11y ago

"Teletext is a surprisingly good internet substitute for basic information consumption" I agree. Teletext feels like it would have been a perfect service for a mobile phone. In the UK, the BBC stopped transmission of their teletext service (Ceefax) in 2012. One of the limitations of the service for writers was that it could only display four paragraphs of text on a single screen. This meant any news or sport story had to include all the key points in just those four paragraphs. This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. (It's actually a great writing exercise to try on any news or sport story, or even essay) Now in the digital age we have apps like Yahoo Digest/Summly that give you concise summaries of the news with large photos (after you've downloaded the 30mb phone app). But teletext did plain, concise text from the start (with real writers) because of the constraints of the technology. And those constraints turned out to be a large part of the appeal of teletext.

cbd1984 11y ago
> This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. ... and remove any context, even more than they already do. Don't we always complain about how computer and tech pieces are too simplistic and outright wrong, but catchy?
Mahn 11y ago
> This forced journalists and writers to be concise and to the point. We need to bring teletext back.
- skrause 11y ago
  It's still strong in Germany and even available over the web (http://www.ard-text.de/ http://www.ard-text.de/) and a mobile-friendly site with the same content: http://www.ard-text.de/mobil/100 http://www.ard-text.de/mobil/100
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
  Seems like a startup opportunity to me - citizen journalism somewhere between Twitter and Medium. 4 paragraphs, 1 image per story. I'd sign up.
  - oakesm9 11y ago
    This is pretty close https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_Page
- brusch64 11y ago
  Here a link to the ORF(Austrian Broadcast Station) teletext: http://teletext.orf.at/ http://teletext.orf.at/ I don't like it, I prefer more thorough news. For me the problem with reading news is not that the writers are writing too long winded, but that they don't give you enough background information.

blubb-fish 11y ago

I guess it addresses a fundamental desire for calmness and simplicity - most likely similar to what drives some nerds towards attempting to do as much as possible in a text based way and in a terminal. It's like the Linux Shell for people who never even heard of Linux.