WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tenn., launched a redesigned website today -- one of the first (indeed, the first I've seen) of more than 100 that will eventually roll out across Gannett's U.S. community newspaper and broadcasting divisions.
Plans for the redesign were first announced by then-CEO Craig Dubow more than two years ago. As promised, it's patterned after USA Today's site overhaul. Unveiled a year ago this month, that new look mimicked a tablet's functions, where readers could click arrows to move pages laterally, rather than a more traditional design, where pages only scroll top to bottom.
Corporate has said it expects to switch to the new template in 35 of the company's top markets by the end of the year. In disclosing that timetable to Wall Street analysts, however, CFO Victoria Harker didn't break down how many would be newspaper vs. broadcasting sites, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript of her remarks.
CEO Gracia Martore told those analysts during the July quarterly conference call that the redesign also included mobile apps. The goal: "to provide better consumer experiences and more higher-value advertising such as video. Our sites and apps will have a more unified look and feel based on the award-winning USA Today mobile apps and will have consistent advertising options across properties, with advanced targeting to enable broader ad solutions."
WBIR introduced the redesign with a note to readers. "We are the first local television station to try out this new website," editors said, "so there will no doubt be a learning curve for us, so we ask for your patience as we figure out how to make this format work best to get you the news and information you need."
Corporate has said it expects to switch to the new template in 35 of the company's top markets by the end of the year. In disclosing that timetable to Wall Street analysts, however, CFO Victoria Harker didn't break down how many would be newspaper vs. broadcasting sites, according to Seeking Alpha's transcript of her remarks.
CEO Gracia Martore told those analysts during the July quarterly conference call that the redesign also included mobile apps. The goal: "to provide better consumer experiences and more higher-value advertising such as video. Our sites and apps will have a more unified look and feel based on the award-winning USA Today mobile apps and will have consistent advertising options across properties, with advanced targeting to enable broader ad solutions."
WBIR introduced the redesign with a note to readers. "We are the first local television station to try out this new website," editors said, "so there will no doubt be a learning curve for us, so we ask for your patience as we figure out how to make this format work best to get you the news and information you need."
Maybe they might want it to work before running with it. Arrows to left and right both take you to the weather page - and then lock you into that page (but helpfully reload every time you click).
ReplyDeleteAnd of the four elements under the centerpiece, three can't be clicked.
At least that's the case with Chrome, which is only the most popular browser in the US.
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Delete5:24 Using the word "retard" or its variants gets a comment removed.
DeleteGo eat your own shit, Jim. If you dealt with some of these idiots more often, it wouldn't be necessary to shame them into hiding.
DeleteI have gone to the site a few times now, and I have yet to experience the problem you describe. It loads more slowly than I would like, but that's it.
DeleteI suspect user error or impairment here. I bet you could find a basic computer class somewhere near you and work through some of your shortcomings.
Oh my God, that site is a UX nightmare
ReplyDeleteThat's what your mom said about you!
DeleteTease from story on mobile site: "..,a man who held a 10 year old girl for over than two weeks." Over than two weeks? Perhaps "more than" or "held over".
ReplyDeleteBest in __ass journalism...
I'm shocked this audience would immediately hate something Gannett introduces. Shocked I say!!!!
ReplyDeleteSo it's USA Today with low-resolution images and low-res (and poorly designed) ads? Great.
ReplyDeleteBwahahahahahahahahahhaahahaha!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnd they make you watch a commercial to tour the website!
The whole damn front page is bouncing around as elements open and close.
Grid of boxes where local, world, and nation are mixed without order. Yes, I want to play a video game of find the news I want every morning before I go to work!
What this design says is that Corporate has waived the white flag to Google News and given up on the front page.
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DeleteNo matter what you think of the new template, consider this: Two years to get this done. That's eons in Internet years, and yet that's where Gannett is trying to compete.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Instagram was launched, built out and sold to Facebook for $1 billion (yes, billion) in two years. Its first funding round was in March 2010 and it agreed to be sold to FB in April 2012.
That's how quickly you've got to move to just stay even with the competition.
Let us know when you do any of that, Jim. I assume it will be a long wait.
DeleteHey 7:13, you'd think a company with all the resources that Gannett does would have been able to do something like Instagram.
DeleteNope, they worried more about Passion Topics and blue balls.
Maybe. But if we're comparing issues, think of this.
DeleteJim has been blogging for almost 5 years now. He still uses the same canned Blogger software that he did at the beginning. The search feature is a mess. He has added no interactive buttons for tracking donations since he started. Thus, we have to rely on the numbers he provides, which always seem to spike at the end of a quarter.
You'd think that in 5 years -- especially with limited employment -- that he'd be able to add some features. Nope. I bet his understanding is as limited as it was 5 years ago. No growth. No ideas.
That's why I don't listen to people like him -- or you -- who talk about how Gannett "should have" done something. You might be correct, but you have zero credibility.
With very few exceptions, there's no business model to support news blogs like mine. Based on AOL's recent experience with Patch, there isn't a corporate model, either.
DeleteEven if I were willing to spend significant money to upgrade to custom software, I don't think my revenue would increase enough to cover those costs. That's why I continue to use the free Blogger platform.
In my best years, I earned about $15,000; now, it's well less than half that, partly because per-click advertising rates continue to fall. (Just ask Google about that.) These days, unfortunately, $15K passes as a pretty good freelance income, given the collapse of the freelance journalism market.
I never started Gannett Blog to make a real living. If my publishing advertising and accepting donations has done anything, it's illustrated the dire straits of independent journalism, still, in 2013.
Summary: Five years. Same software. No updates. Little revenue.
DeleteAll we need to know.
All we need to know 6:58 is that Jim gets a better ROI than Gannett.
DeleteThat, and the latter despite it's vast resources and saying it leads does anything but follow well behind others.
Jim is lucky to make $20 a day, 10:28.
DeleteYou should think first and then post. Or perhaps not post.
Finally, your last sentence belongs in a textbook of How Not To Write.
11:46 Here's a question for you: How many digital-only newspaper subscribers does Gannett now have companywide?
DeleteHere's a question for you, Jim: Does your search feature even work? I tried "Dubow," and it returns a few recent items. I assume that means his name might be in some comments, but that's not very specific.
DeleteDon't you think you should have a working search feature if you're going to criticize a company's Web sites? A working search feature seems to be an important piece to have.
1. The answer is 68,000 digital-only. Not just in Indianapolis. Not just in Phoenix, or Louisville or any other big market.
DeleteThat's across the entire 80-plus markets more than a year after Gannett started selling them.
What does that tell you about the value readers place on Gannett's newspaper content?
2 Which search box did you use?
Gannett suits don't have a plan and they don't have a clue.
ReplyDeleteThe same could be said of this site and most of the people who post on it. Including you.
Delete6:58 is still sitting in a Gannett office going, "I'm safe, they would never get rid of me...." lol
Delete8:58 has to be one of the original buyouts who types in the same response to every comment that doesn't attack Gannett.
DeleteIt would be an understatement to say that the stakes are especially high for CDO David Payne. If he has any chance to be a contender to become Gannett's next CEO -- already a long shot, admittedly -- he and his team have to land this project well.
ReplyDeleteUnless I'm mistaken, this is one of the carrots that Corporate will use to justify another newspaper subscription increase to existing readers.
I looked at the WBIR site in my smartphone. No upgrade. Site looked just like the site for the Gannett paper in my market. Reality to Gannett execs. TV station websites stress video, visuals, action. Not boring like all rest of Gannett newspaper sites
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The mobile site remains lame, which is troubling since I thought that was our priority. They're designing things backwards.
DeleteWow is that ugly. On my computer, using Safari, the whole page blinked every couple of seconds and half of the elements didn’t load at all.
ReplyDeleteThe one element that did load was a terrible photo of a dog. I gather something horrible happened to the dog, but when your main art element is a bad photo of a dog you need to find better art elements.
One redesign goal is to create more uniform companywide advertising positions, including for video prerolls. That comes as Corporate raises pressure still higher on news video production quotas, while simultaneously cutting newsroom resources through layoffs -- a nearly guaranteed recipe for content viewers will reject.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, at USA Today -- which is one of the best staffed papers -- management concluded video quality was so weak, the paper is force feeding videos to viewers via auto play.
Well, you can deliver manure in a trailer, or you can deliver it in the back of a Mercedes, it's still manure. In case you missed my analogy, Gannett has stripped its newsrooms of vital news-gathering resources, so dressing up its websites isn't going to help much if they're still shoveling manure into them.
ReplyDelete10:03 a.m.: I could not agree more. People know garbage when they see it and Gannett content is garbage for the most part. Too many gimmicks _ Passion Topics, Content Evolution, Real News, Real Life _all have failed. Why not go back to basic local news, local sports, coverage of town meetings, local business, etc., etc.???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DeleteDoes anybody know if the USA TODAY site has done well since relaunch? I know it lost traffic for a while, which is typical with such a dramatic redesign. But has the audience returned and grown?
ReplyDeleteIt did take a hit at first, mostly because of a loss of search traffic. But that's in the past -- the new site now exceeds the traffic of any of the past versions of usatoday.com, and anyone in the co. with an Omniture account can look at the numbers and see this.
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ReplyDeleteOur site traffic hasn't recovered from the last change, which was down from the change before that.
ReplyDelete