Tuesday, March 19, 2013

USAT | Questions that invite LOL answers

"Where's the safest place to sit if a plane crashes?"

-- USA Today, in its Facebook news feed less than an hour ago. The paper says reporter Bart Jansen has the answer, which is provided (groan!) in a video. Meanwhile, more than 160 readers have posted just-what-you'd-expect answers. (The first one: "On your couch.")

13 comments:

  1. This video is a classic case of presenting information in a user-unfriendly manner, apparently because it will generate preroll ad revenue.

    The video shows Jansen standing in front of a flat-panel display screen that shows a montage of still photographs.

    Video is a terrific way of telling stories, but only when there's something that can be shown better than can be described solely in words.

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  2. The safest place won't be sitting on Jim's wallet full of donations. That would be empty! Hahahahaha!

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    1. And despite a lack of donations, Jim continues to provide a valuable service to thousands and thousands of current and ex Gannett employees. In the normal world, this would bring praise rather than mocking. As a corporate hack, what Jim does must really get under your skin.

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  3. Empty and hollow are the stories that pass for news at this fast declining operation. Shallow is the execution. Someone should have known better. Where is the quality control, for Pete's sake? Does management defer everything that happens on the website to the kids in charge? Where the fuck are the adults to provide oversight?

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  4. "Innovation" at its finest! This is a symptom of the desparate attempts at churn as the company continues to push social media as the solution to stagnant or declining reader interest.

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  5. Yeah, but it really rocks on our free tablet app.

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  6. Wow... that was not good. He didn't even answer his own question.

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  7. Looks like another retread from David Colton, circa 1999.

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  8. Look, I will admit to being old school, but no matter what perspective you view it from, USAT has been on steady decline in recent years. The idiotic stumbles of just the last five years would be comical if they also weren't so tragic in that good people were lost in order to turn USAT into this dumb and dumber product. The dumb being the people inside who come up with these "brilliant ideas" and the dumber being the type of readers USAT is apparently trying to appeal to.

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    1. If you at a fresh faced newbie, you are fawned over and all of your ideas are brilliant. Forget about work ethic, experience or ability. It dose not matter to the powers that be. GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL HAVE YOUR SANITY.

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  9. Videos like this one also will have the effect of driving users away. Once users feel cheated by the video on a website, they are less like to click on one again.

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  10. The Salem paper's centerpiece today is an enormous promo for the video series 'Secrets of Spring.' Wow.

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  11. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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