Des Moines Register – Analyzing My Local Gannett Newspaper

By now you may have read the Washington Post piece involving Gannett’s self-professed move to embrace the web and, “…redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second.” This is a bold move by the traditional media powerhouse who owns USA Today, among others including the Des Moines Register. Although obvious for some time outside the walls of traditional media, Gannett finally figured it out – the internet is a good thing. They call it a, “Great Experiment”.

“Myron and his colleagues are part of a great experiment being conducted by their corporate parent, McLean-based newspaper giant Gannett, which is trying to remake the very definition of a newspaper. Losing readers and revenue to the Internet and other media, newspapers are struggling to stay relevant and even afloat. Gannett’s answer is radical.

The chain’s papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up “hyper-local,” street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett — at its 90 papers, including USA Today — is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.”

It appears they also want to implement Crowd Sourcing – another term we’ve come to learn outside the traditional media world. Essentially they want to use their community to create content. Why that’s a grand idea.

“The News-Press and other Gannett papers also are building searchable online databases on as many topics as they can think of, in part to “enable people to do digging themselves and maybe find conclusions we won’t,” said Michael Maness, Gannett’s vice president of strategic planning. “It’s having thousands of investigative reporters instead of three.”

But why all the sudden? Well, because that model of traditional media bundled with advertising is dead. The web has differentiated old media enough to bring it to a breaking point. A great quote from a recent Slate article provides further analysis:

” …[G]iven a choice, and the economic means to make a choice, many buyers prefer to make an unbundled purchase. Unbundling the news they want from the news they don’t want is what the Web allows readers to do now.”

So in order to sidestep the inevitable downfall and demise of its empire Gannett has take a step by not only recognizing, but embracing new media and internet ideologies. The question then arises as to Gannett’s motives. Why have they finally decided to implement was has been obvious to the web community for over a decade? Do they want to enhance the user experience by adding value? Or is a it all a matter of the bottom line? Tim O’Reilly on the subject:

“But for the most part, businesses introduce new consumer benefits not just for the benefit of the consumer, but because they expect that benefit to redound to themselves as well.”

Social, Design, Usability, and Feature Analysis of my local Gannett website – The Des Moines Register – after the jump.

1. They Use Pop-Ups

Enough said?

2. Organization and Content

A usual problem with traditional media websites is their content is surrounded by an over abundance of distracting advertisements. There’s a difference between user-friendly advertisements and advertisements that create a displeasing experience for your users. Incorrect and tasteless use of advertising distracts the user from the important stuff – your content. Now, wait until you see their animations.

Des Moines Register Website – Original

Des Moines Register Website – Ads Blacked Out

Des Moines Register Website – All but original content blacked out

3. Header and Navigation

I simply do not like the navigation and overall layout of the header section of the site. In this case the primary, and only navigational element lies in the header and is controlled with javascript. Without javascript, you get the following:

There is a lack of cohesive information architecture in how the content is organized. For instance, I would organize content much like what was done with The New York Times Website:

Notice how the NYTimes design does less with more? And it works without javascript. This is again a lack of organization.

4. RSS Options

There are only three options for RSS feeds – News, Sports and Opinion. You have to be able to do better than that. I want Business, Technology, Agriculture, and Insurance sections. The best newspaper and news media sites deliver a far broader range of RSS options with focused content areas. Like the Slate article mentioned – I don’t want bundles. I want to trim the waste.

5. Waaaaaay too many animations

Watch how many animations there are. Why deliberately distract your users from your content? Content should be your focus. Animated gifs are bad but I think animated advertising is just bad. Video Advertising has potential – but flash animations whose sole function is annoyance to gain focus creates an annoying visitor. Annoyed visitors hardly come back.

View Full Size Screencast

6. Walled Garden Community Approach

Granted, it’s not a walled garden in the sense of the Wall Street Journal where access requires a paid account. In this sense a much smaller walled garden exists in the Des Moines Register Blog section where readers are required to register and login to participate in the conversation. This creates an instant barrier to entry for potential commentators thus limiting your community by a large percent of its potential. You want to involve people in the conversation (blogs) – not invite them and turn them away at the door.

7. No Technology Blogs

Not much of a surprise here.

8. Little to no Media, Technology, Internet Coverage

This is a problem in both print and web. These types of companies do exist in Iowa, believe it or not. How about writing about them? Interviewing them? Or maybe write about how Media, Tech, and Internet affects Iowans? Or how Iowans can embrace them?

9. Poor Video Implementation

Although they have taken the first step of implementing video there are several downfalls. There is no way for me to share videos. This limits your market reach exponentially. There is no way for me to subscribe to videos. The Register allows user submitted videos, but good luck finding it – really. I uploaded a video. It doesn’t work – oh well I’m not going to use it again anyway.

Conclusion: Follow the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and re-engineer in favor of a more valuable user experience. Perhaps they should hire someone to help them out. I realize the DM Register has taken the first step in crowdsourcing and embracing the web. But it’s not effective if you ‘just do it’. You have to mean it because we can tell if you don’t.

Tell us – What do you think? I could probably write all day about the existing problems with the site and its implementation. It’s your turn.

More On the Subject:
A Newspaper Chain Sees Its Future, And It’s Online and Hyper-Local
Troubling ’07 Forecast for the Old-Line Media but Not for the Online
Chronicle of the Newspaper Death Foretold
The Economics of Disaggregation
The Internet Allows Consumers to Trim Wasteful Purchases

Tags: Des Moines, Des Moines Register, Iowa, Media, New Media, Gannett

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