Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

With the World Cup beginning tomorrow week, armchair experts will need to start stocking up on stats and polishing up those chestnuts from now on. That's where the MSM comes in handy. Rainy Day has been looking at what old media is offering on the web and here's our ranking, in descending order of preference, of seven (magic number) sites we've spent a lot of time looking at these past few days:

7. This time around, the BBC is putting a considerable effort into blogging the tournament and all that goes with it.

Positive: Personal voices, regular postings.
Negative: The colours are a bit grim. Might be a portent of what's to come, though. You know, a dull tournament.

6. On the other side of the Atlantic, CNN's offering is powered by Sports Illustrated. Two big hitters, in other words.

Positive: High energy level.
Negative: A bit kludgy for our taste. More subtlety, a bit less chrome in the presentation would not harm, though.

5. The Guardian is throwing the kitchen sink, and then some, at Germany.

Positive: You won't be short of stuff to do if it the weather is bad.
Negative: For a publication that really gets the web, the Guardian falls down on the design side of things. Too dense, the amount of stuff here. Lighten up, Grauniad!

4. Many of our American friends get their sports highs on ESPN, so it should not come as a surprise that the channel is turning up the volume for soccer's big fest.

Positive: Excellent combination of content, layout and navigation. There's a real sense of excitement here.
Negative: It is annoying to have to fill out that form about where you happen to be when you attempt to enter the site. Yes, it helps, probably, when it comes to serving content, but people hate speed bumps on the information highway.

3. Every newspaper and magazine should take a long, hard look at the World Cup blog of the New York Times/Herald Tribune. Yes, this is how to do it.

Positive: From the look to the content to the tone, this feels right. Lots of thought has gone into presentation and the postings are seriously good.
Negative: NYT registration, but it's a small price to pay.

2. Just because we supported George W. in '04, and backed Lance in every year of his campaigning in France, and have endorsed Kinky Friedman for the governorship doesn't mean that all things Texan get the vote here, but the Houston Chronicle's Soccer y Futbol blog is a champion in our eyes.

Positive: It's bilingual and it combines blogging and podcasting. Joe Conway and Bernardo Fallas are ploughing a new furrow here. Good luck to them!
Negative: Naturally, the home team has to be given pride of place, but a broader focus would make this initiative an even bigger hit.

1. And the Rainy Day prize for best MSM use of new media to present the World Cup 2006 goes to the Telegraph.

Positive: Looks lovely and is superb in its balance of text, image and audio. The reporting is excellent and the commentary is incisive. The concept is a success. The new design at the Telegraph seems to have freed up a lot of creative energy.
Negative: None.