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Improving ESC Buzz So You Never Miss A Eurovision Headline Written by on October 21, 2016

Our sister site ESC Buzz has seen a major update this week to help you find all the news about the Eurovision Song Contest as quickly as possible. Ewan Spence talks about the changes.

What’s happening with the Eurovision Song Contest right now? Curiously, it’s not a question that ESC Insight can always answer – with our focus on long-form content and exploring the issues in-depth, the site only kicks into fast-paced daily coverage when we get backstage at the Contest in May.

We still want to keep an eye on everything, just as you do, and that’s why ESC Buzz was developed many years ago. It provided a way to see all the headlines from the various Eurovision community sites on a single page, and a single click on any story takes you to the website to read the story. Quick, simple, and effective. It was also a site that could ‘run itself’, so while we and many hundreds of other readers continued to use it, the code kept ticking away in the background on our server.

A lot has changed in the online world since the site was first developed and over the summer it was time to address some of the issues. This week we’re revealing the new version of ESC Buzz, with more information, more feeds, more video, and the same slow loading speeds that ESC Buzz fans have become used to – it still takes our server a long time to read all of those sites!

ESC Buzz

The new look for ESC Buzz

Buzz Goes Mobile!

The biggest change, and one that has made the biggest difference to ESC Buzz for our testers, is the addition of mobile browser support. You don’t need to do anything different, but the site will pick up your use of a mobile device and present all the links, headlines, and stories, in a single vertical column that is far easier to navigate on the smaller screens.

No more scrolling left, right, up, and down on your iPhone or Android smartphone, just flick down the screen to get all the headlines and news.

ESC Buzz

ESC Buzz goes mobile (image: Ewan Spence)

Buzz Headlines

What was the only page of ESC Buzz is now the main page of ESC Buzz. Here you’ll find the headlines of the top sites in the Eurovision Song Contest world (and yes, you can email me if you think your site should be there – ewan@escinsight.com). The layout has been cleaned up to allow a better visual flow, and we’ve retained the ability to hover a mouse over a headline to get the opening paragraph of the story.

We’ve added a ‘new’ tag that sits along headlines from stories published in the last twenty-four hours. If you are popping in frequently you’ll be able to see the latest updates quickly and easily.

Buzz Video

The rise of video in covering the Eurovision Song Contest means that a line or two on the front page is not enough. Video deserves better, so they have a new dedicated home on ESC Buzz.

Sitting under the ‘Buzz Video’ tab you’ll find the latest videos from a number of sites, from the official Eurovision and Junior Eurovision, to the community sites that run interviews, editorial and news updates through online video.

ESC Buzz

ESC Buzz’s video tab

Song Contest Videos

As well as videos from the community sites, ESC Buzz will keep track of the songs that qualify for the Song Contests, with the official videos and national Final performances available along the top menu bar. At the moment we’re showing the current line-up for Junior Eurovision 2016. Once we’re back from Malta it’ll be the turn of the Adult singers to show up.

Who And What Have We Missed?

And that is the Buzz around Eurovision as we see it today. We hope you find the new version of ESC Buzz even more useful than the previous version… and if this is the first you’re coming across the site, we hope that you can see how useful it will be as the 2016.17 Eurovision season continues.

If you want to discuss anything about ESC Buzz (or anything on ESC Insight for that matter), drop us a line.

You can visit and bookmark ESC Buzz right now at www.escbuzz.com.

About The Author: Ewan Spence

British Academy (BAFTA) nominated broadcaster and writer Ewan Spence is the voice behind The Unofficial Eurovision Song Contest Podcast and one of the driving forces behind ESC Insight. Having had an online presence since 1994, he is a noted commentator around the intersection of the media, internet, technology, mobility and how it affects us all. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, his work has appeared on the BBC, The Stage, STV, and The Times. You can follow Ewan on Twitter (@ewan) and Facebook (facebook.com/ewanspence).

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