Wednesday, September 05, 2007

When Web works...and when it doesn't

Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher wants you to learn from other newspapers' mistakes, but he also wants to tell you what they have been doing right in the changing game of online news.

In his special to the journal, Web Editors Reveal Online Flops or Failures, he outlines 12 DON'TS for online newspapers with examples from some pretty heavy hitters.

Editors at the Denver Post learned the hard way that "technology can pop:"
When The Denver Post's Web editors upgraded technology to allow an automatic refresher of the pages every 10 minutes, believing readers wanted the freshest news, they forgot about the die-hard crossword puzzlers. Many fans of the word game called and e-mailed complaints that every time the page refreshed, their work was wiped out.

He goes on with other tips and pointers, which all made perfect sense to me. Online news execs need to realize that just because there is a new feature or way for readers to interact with the paper online doesn't mean that they will WANT to or bother to take the time. I think Strupp gets the point across that it is a trial-and-error type of situation because everything IS so new. Time will tell.

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