It is a huge splash page, but MSNBC.com has redesigned to put almost all of its content there.

It is a distinctive approach. Where most others encourage --- and require --- click-throughs to launch photo galleries and most of the text content (to garner page views to serve up ad impressions), MSNBC.com has determined its strategy will be to focus heavily on the front page and to attract advertising and sponsorship support to it.

In other words, the site has gone retro, with few layers and much available on the spot.

There are easier search functions, plenty of large-format ads and a more prominent video player. But there are also some click-through functions, particularly to move content to social networks but also to generate a dashboard.

The announcement today that Adrian Holovaty's Everyblock organization has been purchased by MSNBC.com has prompted Alan Mutter to post on Reflections of a Newsosaur a lament.

In short, it's along the lines of: How did publishers miss the opportunity to buy it instead? And, by extension: How do they not realize MSNBC is going to come and try to eat their lunch?

Everyblock is a powerful source code that aggregates local data on crime, construction, civics and consumption, everything from restaurants to break and enters, and yields the data according to zip codes and blocks.

The good news is that the source code is open for others to use. The catch is that whatever you create you must let others use, too.

Mutter suggests Everyblock has the potential as a Cragislist-like competitor for local advertising. He wonder why newspapers didn't see this coming and construct the deal themselves.