First there were the pioneers Cananews.com, CaribbeanNetNews.com and CaribWorldNews.com, then came CaribDaily.com, CaribbeanAxis.com,Caribbeandailynews.com and CaribNewsNetwork.com-it seems aggregating Caribbean news for Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora audience online just got pretty sexy.
Without question there is a need to get a snapshot of what is happening in the Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora on a daily and weekly basis as who has the time to visit the dozens of individual newspaper,radio and television sites to get all that? This is why in a world where the information avalanche happens daily, smart aggregation is sweet and in this case sweet for the Global Caribbean audience online. So the question is, are all of these sites the same. Quick answer, nope! Let’s have a look.
Cananews.com is a pioneer, having been in the pre-Internet game of aggregating and distributing Caribbean news. They started with radio and TV and then moved online. In fact, Cananews.com not only aggregates news but the bulk of their Caribbean news content they originate. This compared to CaribbeanNetNews.com which started their life in the business as a newspaper which quickly folded and now they are web-only.
CaribWorldNews.com is based in the Caribbean Diaspora American epicentre, New York and they provide a daily newswire of Caribbean and Caribbean Diaspora news online as well as by radio and television. In fact its parent company CaribPr recently announced a partnership with PRNewsire just a week ago.
Then there is CaribDaily.com spawned from a Jamaican entrepreneur which again pulls from the existing traditional Caribbean media online sources and offers headline only view of what’s happening in the Caribbean. Where CaribDaily.com is different though is that they have created a Facebook app that delivers the top daily headlines to your Facebook profile. CaribDaily also fills out its site with sidebar features such as wiwords, a dictionary of uniquely West Indian words and phrases. Caribbeandailynews.com one of the new kids on the block is also the classic aggregator, giving headlines,links to the full story from the original source and at times carries the full story right on their site.
CaribbeanAxis.com and Caribnewsnetwork.com rounds out the top Caribbean news aggretating sites we found. CaribbeanAxis.com based out of Trinidad and launched little over a year ago, is a site that aggregates both news from Caribbean traditional sources as well as features from magazine sources. They too differentiate themselves by having a Facebook App called Caribbean Connection and also by offering community via a Linkedin.com-like feature called CaribAxisPro and a travel booking engine for tourists.