The last update I recall was a comment posted by Anonymous@5:26 p.m. in late April, which said: "It is in the early phases, but we will see parts of it rolling out by third quarter with a bulk of it by the end of the year."
Well, the third quarter ends in just 18 days, and I haven't seen any noticeably big changes to any of newspaper division's websites.
Meanwhile, I was told this weekend that the entire project may be in danger of getting shelved, perhaps because it had gone significantly over budget.
The redesign was championed by then-Chief Digital Officer Chris Saridakis, in remarks he made to Wall Street analysts on Dec. 9. "In 2010," he told them, "we will be embarking on a major redesign of our sites that will redefine what a local news site is and drive innovation for both our users and advertisers."
It's worth noting, of course, that Saridakis was one of the executives leading the project -- until, that is, he disclosed plans to quit Gannett. Some 159 days later, the company still hasn't hired his replacement.
Whither Project Odyssey? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
This reminds me, but what happened to the big expansion plans for ContentOne? Seems like a lot of big initiatives are stalling or waiting for something -- Gidot?
ReplyDeleteJim,
ReplyDeleteYou are dead on here. This is an Odyssey. This project has been destroyed. Ever since Saridakis has departed, everything seems to have fallen apart in Gannett Digital. There is no communication from them. They have very weak managers demanding information from all of us. They claim that Gracia Martore is going ballistic about costs and she wants everything halted.
Odyssey was canceled and now it looks like High School Sports is being put through the same micro-managing scope that Odyssey has gone through.
We have no leadership in Digital, nor do we have and leadership at Bob Dickey's level. He delegates everything to Michele Krans and Evan Ray. Last I checked, they knew nothing about websites and sales.
This is typical of what is happening in this company. We are told to get excited about some new corporate initiative, and operations are changed to meet the new requirements. Then nothing happens and we wait....and wait...and wait. Then one day, we discover it has been forgotten, or the exec backing the new initiative has left or retired and no one else knows what he had in mind. So nevermind. Just wait and we will have a new and original initiative that will get everyone excited.
ReplyDeleteAs was always the plan (at least when I worked there), Odyssey is launching at Indianapolis.
ReplyDeleteAlso, to the best of my knowledge (and I've been out of the company for a while now), Odyssey was more Kevin Poortinga's thing than Saridakis.
And, based on the weekend work by The Star's development team this past weekend and Poortinga's presence in Indy, my guess is it'll be launched by the end of the week.
Evidence:
https://twitter.com/kpoortinga/status/24323596560
https://twitter.com/bradpickens/status/24228361481
https://twitter.com/DanaDanger/status/24260412780
https://twitter.com/bradpickens/status/24260587945
Odyssey was shut down and the entire team working on it was let go. They wasted millions of Gannett dollars and now the effort has been totally scrapped.
ReplyDeleteYou won't see anything anytime soon.
The Newark Advocate launches Tuesday and the Indy Star Launches on Thursday with the Odyssey redesign.
ReplyDeleteTrouble with having one corporate wide web site design is that we don't get the value of diversity in effort, meaning that different people come up with different ideas, some of which prove better than others. One size fits all gives you no choice. Of course, the corporate leades think they're so hot they don't need your friggin' ideas.
ReplyDeleteResponding to 10:37 ... There were several task forces involved with the Odyssey project from the start - made up of a combination of large and small markets, so to say that there was no diversity of effort is ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteAlso, keep in mind they have a much longer beta period with Odyssey than they did with Go4, meaning they want to test, learn and modify based on user feedback.
And finally, if you want a Web site that you can control every aspect of, go start a personal blog. The newspaperdotcom is not your personal sandbox
4:57 p.m.: Is that Tuesday as in today and Thursday as in day after tomorrow, or Tuesday and Thursday, Sept. 21 and 23?
ReplyDeleteJim, The launches are the 14th and the 16th. The Newark Advocate launches around 1pm est today.
ReplyDeleteThe site is launched.
ReplyDeleteAccording to a contact at GMTI, the Odyssey project was postponed when several key developers left the company.
ReplyDeleteHas anybody else noticed that Jim was completely WRONG
ReplyDeleteGee, 10:30, it was actually timely. And wrong? How so?
ReplyDelete