All about New York's 29th Congressional District http://www.fighting29th.com/node/4575/atom/feed 2007-11-30T06:30:00-05:00 http://www.fighting29th.com/2007/11/the-smugtown-gazette-internet-it-aint-pretty.html 2007-11-30T06:30:00-05:00 2007-11-30T06:30:00-05:00 Rottenchester

To keep this post manageable, I'll focus on two of the many issues with the D&C's web presence:  ads and community blogs.

Looking at the D&C's advertising is like setting the wayback machine to the year 2000.  Ads have little relation to content, or to Rochester, for that matter.  An Oreck XL ad pops up on one page, with no mention of a local dealer.  The biggest ad on the home page is for the D&C, and D&C promotions are sprinkled on the page like jimmies on a sundae.  Ads are presented on the bottom of the page even if the story is one paragraph long, where nobody will scroll down to see them. 

The D&C website shows what happens when you take the newspaper model of advertising and try to jam it onto a web page.  A web page just can't tolerate as many ads as the D&C is trying to push, and making some of them blink only exacerbates the problem.  Take a look at the City News page if you want to see better ad placement, or how about this newspaper. 

I'm no fan of ads, but If the D&C can't master advertising, they will fail.  After we stop reading paper newspapers, a new competitor will come to Rochester and replace the D&C, since you don't need to build a multi-million dollar printing plant to compete in the written media anymore.

Like the D&C's ads, the D&C community blogs reflect the paper's arms-length relationship with the Internet.  The D&C has built a walled garden where "community bloggers" are allowed to exist, but only on strict terms laid down by D&C editors.  From what I've heard, bloggers can't scoop the D&C on important stories, so anything the D&C usually covers is off limits until the D&C posts a story about it.  And the D&C is quick to reprimand bloggers who commit an infraction, real or imagined.

Since D&C management has made it clear that they're comfortable only with a steady stream of drivel,  for the most part, community bloggers provide it.  The Pittsford blogger, an elderly gentleman who likes to bold the first few words in every paragraph, writes about leaks in his house and luncheons he attends.   Just read a page of the Chili blog and tell me if it represents what's happening in Chili.  There are exceptions, like Gates, but they're rare.

I don't mean to be snarky and mean to a group of unpaid workers, but much better has been done by unpaid area residents.  A prime example is Jason Crane's new blog, Rocbike. In politics, Mustard Street, the Water Buffalo Press and Rochester Turning are head and shoulders above what the D&C publishes.

In addition to the dull content, the setup of the blogs in general is technically incompetent. The D&C doesn't offer RSS feeds for any of its blogs. Instead of posting "permalinks", the reader needs to work figure out the URL of the post, so it's hard to link to their content.  The D&C uses a major blogging tool (Blogger), but they've removed all of the Blogger features that let blogs interact easily with the parts of the Internet.  It's hard to believe this was done by accident.

It's just obvious from the content and the presentation that the D&C hosts community blogs out of pure duty.  They wish this "whole blog thing" would just go away, but if it won't, they're going to make sure that it isn't a threat to the "real journalists" at the D&C.

Next up:  A small local paper shows the D&C how it's done.
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To keep this post manageable, I'll focus on two of the many issues with the D&C's web presence:  ads and community blogs.

Looking at the D&C's advertising is like setting the wayback machine to the year 2000.  Ads have little relation to content, or to Rochester, for that matter.  An Oreck XL ad pops up on one page, with no mention of a local dealer.  The biggest ad on the home page is for the D&C, and D&C promotions are sprinkled on the page like jimmies on a sundae.  Ads are presented on the bottom of the page even if the story is one paragraph long, where nobody will scroll down to see them. 

The D&C website shows what happens when you take the newspaper model of advertising and try to jam it onto a web page.  A web page just can't tolerate as many ads as the D&C is trying to push, and making some of them blink only exacerbates the problem.  Take a look at the City News page if you want to see better ad placement, or how about this newspaper. 

I'm no fan of ads, but If the D&C can't master advertising, they will fail.  After we stop reading paper newspapers, a new competitor will come to Rochester and replace the D&C, since you don't need to build a multi-million dollar printing plant to compete in the written media anymore.

Like the D&C's ads, the D&C community blogs reflect the paper's arms-length relationship with the Internet.  The D&C has built a walled garden where "community bloggers" are allowed to exist, but only on strict terms laid down by D&C editors.  From what I've heard, bloggers can't scoop the D&C on important stories, so anything the D&C usually covers is off limits until the D&C posts a story about it.  And the D&C is quick to reprimand bloggers who commit an infraction, real or imagined.

Since D&C management has made it clear that they're comfortable only with a steady stream of drivel,  for the most part, community bloggers provide it.  The Pittsford blogger, an elderly gentleman who likes to bold the first few words in every paragraph, writes about leaks in his house and luncheons he attends.   Just read a page of the Chili blog and tell me if it represents what's happening in Chili.  There are exceptions, like Gates, but they're rare.

I don't mean to be snarky and mean to a group of unpaid workers, but much better has been done by unpaid area residents.  A prime example is Jason Crane's new blog, Rocbike. In politics, Mustard Street, the Water Buffalo Press and Rochester Turning are head and shoulders above what the D&C publishes.

In addition to the dull content, the setup of the blogs in general is technically incompetent. The D&C doesn't offer RSS feeds for any of its blogs. Instead of posting "permalinks", the reader needs to work figure out the URL of the post, so it's hard to link to their content.  The D&C uses a major blogging tool (Blogger), but they've removed all of the Blogger features that let blogs interact easily with the parts of the Internet.  It's hard to believe this was done by accident.

It's just obvious from the content and the presentation that the D&C hosts community blogs out of pure duty.  They wish this "whole blog thing" would just go away, but if it won't, they're going to make sure that it isn't a threat to the "real journalists" at the D&C.

Next up:  A small local paper shows the D&C how it's done.
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