The Dominion Post, the Wellington morning newspaper, has launched a digital edition, currently available to paper subscribers for a 3 month trial or to the merely curious for a 7 day preview. This offering comes less than a year after Fairfax (the parent company) redeveloped the Stuff website, a redevelopment I was less than enthused about at the time.
Coming hot on the heels of the BBC introducing social bookmarking, I was quite keen to see what social media or Web 2.0 features the new service offered subscribers. Suffice it to say that the initial experience has proved to be underwhelming and frustrating in judiciously equal parts.
So, what is the new digital version all about? It is touted thus:
[...] every page, every section and every advertisement is presented. It provides you with a view of a newspaper page just like the print version, with the same layout and realistic page turning technology.
Dominion Post (my emphasis).
Aside from the fact that it looks just like the paper tossed haphazardly into your shrubbery every morning, what exactly is the point of this exciting new innovation?
Whatever it is, it is definitely not performance. It is slow to load, at around 40-60 seconds per page on dial-up (actually, 44 kbps when tested), and with Internet speeds what they are in this country, that is a non-trivial consideration. And as it is essentially just a series of images, it is completely useless to anyone using assistive technologies.
Even though there is a mobile version, I can’t see why you would want to download a series of large (and expensive) images to your phone – that sort of functionality is the whole point of HTML.
In any event, it is a moot point. Despite filling out a long and complex registration form (for a purportedly free trial) and using Opera Mini (v2.0.4) on a late model Nokia, I was unable to get past the sign-on stage. Frustratingly, I was just cycled back to the same ‘New user’ screen after each apparently successful attempt at completing the form. Now that was helpful.
Someone there obviously has read about Web 2.0, though. They have finally added RSS feeds to this edition of the paper. Bewilderingly, the HTML version of the paper still lacks this feature. Well, perhaps it is not so difficult to understand. There are two feed options on offer: the front page and the full paper.
This is less a reason to rejoice than you would expect. The front page feed yields a respectable 8-10 items. The only other option, the full feed, has over the last week delivered between 140-200 items per day into the aggregator. Saturday’s (at right) is 149. And the feed is, obviously, only refreshed once per 24 hour period. So at the beginning of the day you get 180-odd items dumped into your reader – it’s not so much a river of news as an overwhelming flood…
Why would you pour money into building something that is redundant on so many levels? It doesn’t work as a web site, because it excludes so many people. It doesn’t work as a news channel because you can’t access it (easily, or at all) via your feed reader or mobile phone.
What is it for? Well, if I was a shareholder I would be asking exactly that question. It looks like it is a rather lame attempt to push offline advertising onto online consumers.
It also looks like a ringing confirmation of the suspicion I expressed last year, that Fairfax executives have absolutely no clue about state-of-the-art online newspapers now, or where online news is headed in the short to medium term.
6 Comments
I think you are making the mistake of looking at the news industry the wrong way round here Jason. The bottom line is that a newspaper’s core business is selling advertising. As such it is the advertiserising industry that drive changes in the news media and not consumer habits or technology changes.
In 2002 the online advertising spend in New Zealand was $0, and this year is expected to reach $100m – but this represents only one eighth of newspaper advertising revenue (print) expected for 2007.
In the US advertisers have been quicker to spend online; conservative forecasts for online advertising in 2007 are about a third of newspaper (print) advertising. This has driven US newspapers to invest in their online offering (I note your “state of the art” link lists only US newspapers).
In defence of New Zealand newspaper executives: why would they be investing in an area of their business that was not offering as much of a return? And what would shareholders say if they did throw money at an unprofitable area of the business?
The only other thing I will add in defence of the Dominion’s digital edition is that the “digital revolution” happened in the media industry over twenty years ago. It is us, the news consumers, who are coming late for the party and the advertisers are arriving later still.
But don’t expect the advertisers in full force until we, the consumers, have all settled in and made ourselves comfortable.
Thanks for the counterview Sam. I have no problem with their core business being advertising and can see how that is the driver in this case.
My frustration is more a function of the fact that, despite significant investments, they still can’t deliver a decent website. Despite ample examples around the globe, they still can’t come up with more interesting ways to sell their ads. Why not go to ad-supported full-text RSS feeds? Why include a mobile service that doesn’t work (either theoretically or practically)?
I am prepared to be proved wrong, but I reckon this thing will prove to be a colossal waste of money…
Now tell me honestly Sam, do you think this thing works?
Of course not, and TBH I wouldn’t even bother with it; but then again I am not having to manage relationships with advertisers while they migrate from print to online.
I feel this is a strategic stepping stone for Fairfax and a chance to make mistakes and learn lessons.
This is a typical example of a publisher wishing to hold on to the old principles of selling advertising. I frequently use nu.nl (which means now.nl) for my news needs in the Netherlands.
This is an example of a publisher gone public. the are the biggest news site publishing the news NOW and selling advertising on the edges but not annoying. They even have the process of publishing right. Not once or twice every day but all day long. As soon as it happens.
Besides that we have our top quality news paper publishing a seperate tabloid sized newspaper aimed at young people. Lot’s of the info in the printed version refers to the site of the newspaper. Articles literally end with “More on nrcnext.nl”.
Jason you’re right. This is an investment gone the wrong way. They could better consider two seperate tracks.
1. Make an on-line newsservice not “papershaped” and target specific audience and eadvertsiers with this service.
2. Keep the dead tree version the way it is.
This would be less expensive for an investment. People used to on-line news gathering would adopt it. This strategy could generate an extra revenue source because advertisers should not have their advertisement published in the paper version as well as in the on-line version for the same price.
sigh… and i naively thought its core business was delivering news.
no wonder i don’t go there.
there’s advertising too you say? interesting. i wonder what it’s about?
Similar themes from the NYT decision: