21–30 of 189 posts
It would not surprise me the people at the helm in large newspapers don't really care about "the experience" and still think in terms of content + ads. Heck, even Wired's website is horribly bloated and slow.
Why are newspapers so horrible? My family used to get a paper newspaper when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. It had all the regular stuff - news, local news, editorial, sports, etc. But mostly it was ads. On Sunday it was a monstrosity, being nearly unmanageable due to the number of ad inserts. Most of it you threw away without looking at. Most of the stories had no value. One day later I couldn't remember wha…
Pre-internet days, Thursday was always a day you had to buy early if you were in the market for a new job - after 3pm it would be hard to find anywhere with a copy left to buy.
Newspapers slit their own throats back in 1994-5 or so when they decided to put their content up for free because they could sell ad space. It was a bad idea then, and I don't think anyone's tried to fix it in the past 25 years.
Lots of newspapers paywall their online content.
I actually did some freelance website development for a local newspaper website around 15 years ago. I can't speak for larger newspapers, this was my experience with a much smaller one. The biggest challenges I found were: 1. Lack of a real technical / engineering department. Having said that, their core business is news and they really just need a functioning website, not a full (and expensive) engineering departmen…
> They wanted the website to "feel" more like a real newspaper, including things like incorporating custom layout, design and other elements on the website. Explaining the limitations of HTML, CSS and Javascript was a bit ... frustrating for both sides. Did they demand "page turning animation" each time user clicks "next page" in the pagination?
I imagine today people are more familiar with that concept.
I actually did some freelance website development for a local newspaper website around 15 years ago. I can't speak for larger newspapers, this was my experience with a much smaller one. The biggest challenges I found were: 1. Lack of a real technical / engineering department. Having said that, their core business is news and they really just need a functioning website, not a full (and expensive) engineering departmen…
> They wanted the website to "feel" more like a real newspaper, including things like incorporating custom layout, design and other elements on the website. Explaining the limitations of HTML, CSS and Javascript was a bit ... frustrating for both sides. Did they demand "page turning animation" each time user clicks "next page" in the pagination?
I think historians will look back on this era and point society’s decline towards two companies, they both start with “Go”.
Why are newspapers so horrible? My family used to get a paper newspaper when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. It had all the regular stuff - news, local news, editorial, sports, etc. But mostly it was ads. On Sunday it was a monstrosity, being nearly unmanageable due to the number of ad inserts. Most of it you threw away without looking at. Most of the stories had no value. One day later I couldn't remember wha…
Why are newspapers so horrible? My family used to get a paper newspaper when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. It had all the regular stuff - news, local news, editorial, sports, etc. But mostly it was ads. On Sunday it was a monstrosity, being nearly unmanageable due to the number of ad inserts. Most of it you threw away without looking at. Most of the stories had no value. One day later I couldn't remember wha…
Going further, even the business model of chumboxes wouldn't exist - back in the days of print, ads were mostly used to sell a product; where as the point of chumboxes is to drive more eyeballs to other sites where they can look at other ads; the content itself is worthless.
Nowadays, ads are delivered programmatically from a third-party, which means the newspaper has no way to even know what garbage is going to be displayed to their readers. This is the real problem.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of newspapers paywall their online content.
...and still have mostly ads.
They have two paid plans, a "Basic" one and a "Premium EU Ad-Free Subscription" promising "No on-site advertising or third-party ad tracking". However, trying to subscribe to the latter still says the following:
> By subscribing, you agree to the use by us and our third-party partners of technologies such as cookies to personalize content and perform analytics. Please see our Terms of Service, Digital Products Terms of Sale and Privacy Policy for more information.
Yeah, no thanks.