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Washington Post Reviews its 10 Years on the Web
anaesthetica writes "The Washington Post is featuring three stories today reviewing their experience in adapting the "old media" to the new environment of the web. The first article examines their revelation that 'The news, as "lecture," is giving way to the news as a "conversation".' The second looks at the 'Kaiser memo' which served as the germinating point for what would become WashingtonPost.com, phrased in language that today seems amusingly quaint. The final article looks at the death of traditional print newspapers as consumers flock to internet sources for their news."
I would start reading them. Instead, I keep going back to the BBC.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
So, which was the first print newspaper to have a website? A dialup bulletin board type thing (digital ink) doesn't count.
Now, I think the fundamental problem with this metaphor is that frogs have no business swimming in the sea, electronic or otherwise. That should be left to select e-turtles.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
1992? What a joke! The folks at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, with help from some local techies, produced "the world's first electronic newspaper" in 1982!
From the usual source:
1992... we had y'all beat by ten years.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Some "give away" online postings with the purchase of a listing in their papers, while others value their webpage sales over conventional.
The rise of the internet news over newspaper has meant far more than just a different format for the delivery of news. It has meant that far more than in the past news is being delivered by wire services like Reuters, AP, AFP etc. This is fine as far as it goes, but as wire services can deliver news cheaply to many different sites, it makes for some pretty uniform coverage of many events. Websites can't afford to send their own reporters, so are increasingly relying on the wires to do the leg work for them. Just take a look at Google News any day of the week to see how many of the stories are exactly the same. I love reading my favourite news online, but I rue the day that great newspapers become a conduit for delivering the wires withough delving into the investigative pieces that truly change society.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
TEN INTERNET YEARS
... Web! It made sense at the time. But in the 10 years following the birth of washingtonpost.com, the Net and its publishing platform, the World Wide Web, have proved harder to master, scarier to get wrong and more thrilling to get right than expected. Wilder, and discontinuous with the past in a way those coming out of traditional journalism never could have imagined.
Web Users Open the Gates
By Jay Rosen
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 19, 2006; 12:00 AM
A decade after major news providers such as The Washington Post began publishing on the Internet, they are finally beginning to ask the right questions about what the Web can do for them and their readers -- and to realize how disruptive web technology is to traditional journalism.
Big guns such as the Associated Press's chief executive, Tom Curley, have admitted that the industry seriously fumbled its new media strategy for years by opting to re-purpose material produced to serve print and broadcast audiences.
Only recently has it begun to respond to the decisive, Internet-driven shift in the "balance of power" between news providers and readers by striving to deliver news "on-demand" and by developing truly interactive reports, Curley told the Online News Association in 2004.
"When the Web was born as a commercial content enterprise back in the mid-'90s, we thought it was about replicating -- that is, 'repurposing' -- our news and information franchises online," Curley said. "The news, as 'lecture,' is giving way to the news as a 'conversation'."
The earlier idea of re-purposing content was not innovative, but it was rational and cost-effective. The Web is flexible. It can "kinda/sorta" replicate an older format, if that's the goal. It's useful as a cheap, fast mass delivery system. "Trusted brands," the thinking went, could establish trusted sites, and transfer their reputations to the new medium.
Newspaper, radio, television
Simple example: The Net radically shifts principles of news distribution as all sites become equidistant from the reader.
In 2003, I tracked Arnold Schwarzenneger's gubernatorial campaign by reading California Insider by Dan Weintraub because the Sacramento Bee political columnist seemed more clued-in to the race than top national reporters. That I could choose his coverage (and links) over the Washington Post's demonstrates the "unbundling" effect of the Internet.
Containers in which news had been packaged broke apart because the Internet could deliver content without the wrapping. I had no use for the Sacramento Bee, just Weintraub. The technology increased his influence, his "brand," while subtly diminishing the Bee's.
The disintegration of news containers unsettled a business that had coped with the introduction of radio and television. Executives were forced to redraw their value chains. Curley, for example, suggested that "legacy technology, silo-ed bureaucracies and entrenched workflows" at American newsrooms had prevented creative responses to the Web. True. Yet the disruptions happened anyway. Here are some that stand out for me:
The "closed" system of gates and gatekeepers has been busted open. What's the most amazing thing about the new media world? Its low barriers to entry. Thanks to the Internet, it is cheap and simple to launch a site that, theoretically, the whole world could be watching.
Yesterday there were a few dozen providers; today news, views and attitudes stream through millions of gates. And the Web accepts all kinds of gatekeepers, each with unique rules for what matters, rather than the rules adopted by a class of professionals with set journalistic principles. For the old gatekeepers that's a big disruption. The charges made against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, claiming that his medals were undeserved, could have been held out of circulation by newsroom gatekeepers, pre-Internet. By 2004, it was impossible to keep such a
Namaste
As a New Yorker, I started out reading mostly the New York Times. However Wapo has consistently led in innovations in the industry. Coupled with their world class journalism, blogs, all kinds of reader feedback, and most importantly -- leaving the content free, has let me to turn to them as must read on my long list of news sources each morning.
The NY Times has walled off their editorial and I have seen my interest in the paper slowly wane.
Happy 10 years Wapo!
Newsfollow.com
That would be once for my laptop, once for my desktop system, once for my primary machine at work, once for the kiosk in the server room, twice for the kiosks in the lab...all being redone every time I clean out the cookies.
But the problem is it's not just the Post. There's all these newspapers doing it. Repeatedly, I've had people send me links to what I would assume are interesting stories...only to be hit with a registration page. If I'm not willing to put up with the hassle for my local paper, I'm sure not going to bother for the West Bumfuck Tribune out of Idaho. CNN, Fox News(1), ABC News, even MSNBC aren't doing registrations, so guess who gets my traffic.
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(1) Yeah, like I'd really follow Fox News.
The alternative is even worse, and it ain't bloggers.
That has nothing to do with the rise of online. That was an unfortuante trend in media that was happening anyway. If you could compare articles from lots of big-city newspapers on any given day, you'd see the same phenomenon. The only thing the internet does is make it very easy to see how much the newspapers copy from wire services and one another at one single glance.
The way I see it, it's not about the technology, it's about the content. As long as the Washington Post refuses to take a stand against the outrageous claims of the Bush administration (in the name of "civility"), they will only have value to me as a barometer of what the Republicans have their followers believing.
Not sure about everyone else, but I still subscribe to the paper New York Times. I read it on the way into work, I read it in the hammock in the back yard, I read it in Starbucks. Having the electronic version available is great if I want to copy or reference something on my computer, but as far as "getting" my news goes, its still the paper version for me.
... there've been some rough spots, but overall they've done a good job.
"We learned a major lesson -- neither your server nor your vendor should be so far away that you can't kick them."
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
But that's exactly what's wrong with so many news-ish web sites. I don't want to have to wade through an unqualified conversation about facts and events, I simply want the facts. At least on slashdot there is a moderation system, and a pretty good understanding of the prevailing local culture - that means that when I want a "conversation" about the news, I can come and get one. Or go elsewhere. For a hoot, I could go to Drudge as a springboard to all sorts of spun conversations.
But a first rate "news" source (like the front page of the WP) shouldn't require me to wonder who is conversing with whom, that particular day. The Washington Post is my "local" paper, here in suburban Maryland. My gut sense, having read the paper for over 30 years, is that the web-based conversation they are now hosting has been eroding their editorial spine. Ironically, I've traditionally disliked their editorial positions - but they were consistent, and I had a sense of how that was going to shape their coverage decisions. Now, they seem to be thrashing around quite a bit.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I lived in Washington DC from July 1996 to August 1998, then from December 1999 to August 2005--a total of about seven years. During all that time, I subscribed to both the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal; both would come every morning by 6 am, and I would eat breakfast standing up and going through both papers pretty thoroughly--paging through every section, scanning headlines, reading articles that interested me. I did this in spite of reviewing an increasing number of on-line news sites and blogs each day.
..bruce..
I moved to Parker, Colorado, in August 2005. Parker is about 25 miles from downtown Denver. My WSJ delivery shifted from early morning to coming in the mail--which meant that I got each day's edition in the afternoon, if I got it at all (sometimes it wouldn't come until the next day). I didn't even try to get the WP; instead, I signed up for a 'weekend' subscription to the Rocky Mountain News (largely for movie listings). And when my WSJ subscription came up for renewal, I let it lapse for this simple reason: by the time the WSJ came and I had a chance to read it, I had already been exposed to most of the news stories that interested me via the web.
I now have in my bookmarks roughly 140 news, information, commentary and blog sites, all of which I review at least once a day, and about 25% of which I review multiple times a day. I miss having the Post and the WSJ at my door before 6 am each morning; navigating their web sites is not as easy as reading the newspaper, and could I get them here that early, I would still subscribe to both, even at the combined rate of $200-300/year. But getting the WSJ in mid-afternoon just isn't worth it, and the Post would be even more delayed. So after a lifetime of reading newspapers (I'm 53), I've largely given up on them.
Bruce F. Webster (brucefwebster.com)
Reminds me of a minister leading off a church newsletter by saying "Some feel that the church is old-fashioned in today's modern fast-paced world, but starting next month we are going to make use of contemporary technology to spread the Good News and help parishioners stay in touch. Yes, we are going to put a up what is known as 'web site' on the international communications system known as the Internat. Any one with a 'modem' will be able to 'download' our newsletters. It is not so different from the letters Paul used to communicate with the early churches, but instead of ink and paper we will use electrons moving at the speed of light."
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
With camera crews now able to broadcast live from anywhere on the planet, news has become the ultimate reality TV show. There's far less interest in capturing and analyzing real facts and far more on sound-bites, dramatic backdrops and other creative content to up viewership.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
And unfortunatly StarText.Net is now owned by a domain squater.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Lots of people are dropping static newspapers in favor of Web editions, even of the same content, because then they can google what they see in the news. The Washington Post, along with the New York Times and most every other news outlet, has accelerated that move by publishing more and more material that depends on reader fact checking and cross reference.
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make install -not war
The Washington Post is an excellent newspaper with an outstanding editorial staff. It's a shame that their website wastes the paper's editorial resources.
Start with the home page. It's impossible to scan the thing. There are a few big stories at the top of the page, and then the bottom of the page falls into a huge morass of links arranged in multiple columns. The eye gets lost in this junkpile, and the little five-word headlines generally provide no context for the stories. Why don't these guys look at online-only news sites, like CNET News.com or Yahoo News? They're much better organized and easier to scan for interesting news.
Bad layout isn't all that's bad about the website though. Take the ads for example. You'd think that with the registration data they demand from users, they could serve targeted, useful ads. Nope--instead I always get the same ads for mortgage refinancing--how useful for an apartment dweller. Or you'd think that they could use the content of the news stories to serve up targeted ads--wouldn't advertisers pay a lot for that? If I'm reading, say, a story about computers, serve up computer ads; or if I'm reading Steve Barr's "Federal Diary" column, serve up ads for federal employees' health insurance? Hasn't the Post learned anything from Google? Nope--it's always the mortgage refinancing ads. And these guys wonder why they're not making any money on the Web?
Useless ads wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so irritating. All the Post's pages are littered with ads. They figure that annoying pop-ups aren't enough, so recently they started these irritating Flash ads that creep out, seizing a third of your browser window before receding. Are they trying to make it annoying? Is that what they've learned from powerhouse ad sellers like Google--annoying ads work? Did they really make that much money selling X10 camera ads?
I look at the Post website because they still have the best local DC coverage. I avoid the Post website for anything else--sure, the Post covers the White House the best, but the AP does almost as good a job and I can get their stuff on the annoyance-free Yahoo News. The Post is intent on annoying its users with cluttered pages and as long as that's the case, craigslist and Google will eat them alive in the online world.
Penny - plain text accounting
Bruce,
You need to get a grip on life. Reading news day in and day out will certainly keep you up-to-date, but life wasn't meant to be spent like that. Get a girlfriend or join a club. It's definitely not healthy to spend this much time living in the past, when you should live in the present.
Join life!
"We had an Internet bottleneck and the servers couldn't handle the traffic," said Mark Stencel, who went on to run the site's political coverage through the 2000 election. "We learned a major lesson -- neither your server nor your vendor should be so far away that you can't kick them."
To swim, only to die at the edge.
Having to page through a short web article *like TFA* shows that the authors do not actually care about making what they write easy to read and put their advertisers' desires above their readers' needs.
Once I see that, I'll ignore anything else they have to say about how great they are.
There are lots of news sites on the web now, but the one thing that is a big problem for me is how long they retain these news stories. It seems that many 'news' sites (and many bloggers) don't care about archiving their information, and after a few days the story is gone. If I want to find old news stories, I would probably have better luck going to a library and using a *gasp* microfiche.
http://bike.stu.ph/rides - free GPS routes available for Garmin, Magellan, GPX and Google Earth
I destroy all cookies whenever I close the browser (in Firefox, that's an automatic setting), so I'm not about to register each and every freaking time there's news.
Maybe someday I'll get BugMeNot, but honestly, I have a very low tolerance for saying "screw it" so I probably wouldn't even bother doing that.