Regional publisher Northcliffe Media has completed a relaunch of its newspaper companion websites designed to take its online offering “beyond news and information.”
New versions of each of the 26 thisis sites are now live, following a pilot launch involving three of the sites last week.
The new colour-coded sites have been completely redesigned and rebuilt on the same technical platform that powers the Local People network of more than 200 community sites.
The publisher’s local online arm Northcliffe Digital said the revamp was designed to “evolve the thisis proposition beyond news and information to users’ first port of call for whatever they want to know, do or find in their regions.”
Among the biggest changes will see user-generated content displayed prominently on the homepage alongside news.
In a bid to provide an “integraed user journey,” local business reviews, deals and listings have been embedded alongside relevant local editorial content.
Northcliffe Digital managing director Roland Bryan said: “Delivering great local news content remains at the heart of our mission, but we are now moving towards a more interactive and relevant social experience for our users.
“The new sites are built around our users and promote interaction between people, local businesses and our content. Every piece of content across the thisis network has calls to action to allow our users the opportunity to create, respond or discuss.
“As the internet becomes more social, it’s crucial that we enable conversations between individuals in the community, the businesses that serve them as well as the journalists who are leading the local news agenda.”
“Our aim is for Thisis to become the first destination for the local communities we serve, bringing people and businesses closer together; delivering not only audience reach, but also highly measurable results to our advertising partners.”
However some Northclffe newspaper staff, speaking anonymously to HTFP, have expressed concern about the prominence being given to user-generated content.
One said: “Readers can file their own “articles” which compete directly with the actual news content at the top of the page. Madness.”
“The new design puts readers’ comments up in lights using ‘soundbite’ boxes in a prominent position on the homepage. The result was one site having remarks to the effect of “what the *£@% is this new site about” for its first four days with the new design.”
The thisis network boasts 5.9m monthly unique users and claims more than 50pc local penetration in the regions they serve.
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In other words, as Northcliffe now has hardly any journalists left after sacking so many, the websites are filled with any old gossip, badly-written parish newsletter or malicious rant that people care to upload.
Well done, Northcliffe, in striking yet another blow against quality, reputable, reliable local journalism
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I’m wondering why it is madness to allow people to post their own content onto a website.
Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Blogger to name but a few might disagree with you !
It’s what most people expect nowadays.
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It’s what people expect from all of the above. Not from their local newspaper, Dave.
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Well, Dave, at least when a comment is libellous the site can be sued, unlike Twitter. Knowing some of the comments that saw the light of day on the old site (dunno about the new one, it’s not working properly – nothing new there, then) that is going to happen quite soon.
And I note, after picking my way through the confusing mishmash of colours and bits ‘n’ pieces, that the writing and subbing haven’t improved.
The old site was dull. This one hurts my eyes!
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For goodness sake Dave, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and most boring bloggers don’t do it for me. I want a local newspaper, on paper preferably, that tells me all the local news. The majority of people who post in comments appear to be sitting alone in their bedrooms with the curtains closed, waiting for Mummy to bring them their cuppa at regular intervals. Most people do NOT expect their local paper to be written by morons. I have a great respect for local journalists, and feel they have been very hard done by. Their NCTJ qualis are much better then many of those mickey mouse degrees editors are bombarded with in job applications.
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Delusional at best, something more sinister at worst.
Do publishing executives really believe internet users need provincial newspapers to “enable conversations between individuals in the community”?
If they do, they need to wake up. Actually, why bother? It’s too late.
And if they don’t, then it’s just another step along the path towards replacing balanced and objective journalism (expensive) with self-interest and gossip (free).
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I respect journalists as well Lurker and its important that the profession survives.
However, the reality is that people are now promoting their events on Facebook instead of local whats on pages, they are now searching for houses on Rightmove instead of reading property pages, they are now breaking news on twitter instead of buying the paper for the latest news.
If regional newspaper websites don’t or won’t adapt to this reality, they won’t survive in the online marketplace.
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I think that all local newspaper websites need to continue to evolve to be more than just the newspaper content re-purposed online, and feel that user-generated content has an important role to play within local websites, although it should be alongside, rather than instead of, professionally generated content.
With that in mind, I think Northcliffe have some right ideas in terms of trying to build on this. However, the way it’s been executed online via the new websites is pretty dreadful.
Comments from users of the websites, which through the new design are now front of view, have been more or less unanimously critical of the new design. The homepage in particularly just seems bizarre – content thrown randomly around the page, huge swathes of empty space at the bottom of the page, loading time much slower, a search mechanism that seems to have gone backwards rather than forwards to name but a few things.
While I support some of the aims of the new sites, whoever signed off on the design believing that it followed even just the most basic of web design rules – ie it being user-friendly, clear and intuative to use – needs to answer some serious questions.
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“… they are now breaking news on twitter…”
Not gossiping, spreading rumours, breaching court orders, breaking embargos, repeating fallacies, libelling people, ranting randomly, giving tedious updates on their whereabouts and telling everyone what they’ve had for dinner?
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Yeah, All Subbed out, that is all part and parcel of Twitter as well, but you can’t deny the popularity of social media.
I have seen many genuine news items local, national and international broken on twitter as well, amongst the junk.
It depends on who you follow and in turn the mainstream media don’t seem beyond using social media as a source of news themselves.
Honestly, journalists and newspapers really have to snap out of this sneering attitude that news ‘belongs to them’ and that no one else has any right to contribute.
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From what I’ve seen, the vast majority of the comments posted on the various websites are highly critical of the redesign, so maybe it’s time for Northcliffe to take a leaf out of David Cameron’s book and perform a swift U-turn or two. However, it wouldn’t take much to put things right: restore the news to the home page and in order of importance (and even with breaking news items, if the few surviving staff have time to consider such matters); keep the comments on the end of stories, but prominently flag up the forums, the contributed articles and whatever other elements are deemed to make the sites more ‘social'; and have fewer elements per page. Then, I suspect, the moans about colours and clutter will soon disappear. The revamped sites are not beyond redemption but someone needs to eat a fair-sized helping of humble pie and admit that the redesign needs a redesign.
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The design is confused and newspapers have been relegated to the position of “contributer”.
Northcliffe’s strategy, if it has one, flies in the face of basic marketing. The USP, as the greatest papers in the world have realised, is the brand, and the fact it lets users know you have professional journalists and a trusted product, why let that be watered down and try and compete with the likes of Facebook?
i don’t expect the New York Times website to lose its masthead and become http://www.thisisnewyork.com any time soon.
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Ha ha…….cheeky http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk
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