Ways to Improve Newspaper Websites
From BivingsReport Wiki
[edit] Start Using Tags
The structure of just about every site we looked at more or less followed that of the paper’s print edition. This is great if you are looking to read the print version of the paper but not great if you are looking to see everything the paper has written on, say, Joe Lieberman. Newspapers aren’t taking advantage of the opportunity the Internet offers to remix/categorize content.
The social news site Newsvine uses tags, and all I have to do is put in newsvine.com/lieberman and voila, I see all the Lieberman stories. Using tags to complement traditional navigation is a great way to offer alternative views of content and better relate stories to each other.
The taxonomy of newspaper sites is broken and using tags is a pretty good way to start fixing the problem.
[edit] Provide Full Text RSS Feeds
Not a single newspaper we looked at offered full text RSS feeds. All of them only offered partial feeds, essentially using RSS like email notification - letting users know about new stuff in order to attract more page views. Newspaper should experiment with providing ad-supported full text RSS feeds. This is already common practice among blogs like Gawker (see right) and would satisfy the growing number of folks who want to read all their news in a single RSS reader.
[edit] Work with External “Social” Websites
Only four of the hundred websites we looked at allowed bookmarking through social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us. And to my knowledge none allowed for easy submission of content to Digg from their website. Newspapers should work with sites like these as a way to promote and spread their content.
[edit] Get Rid of All Registration
I’m at the point where I’m not going to register to read content unless it’s the New York Times. I’ll either work around the registration using BugMeNot or just go elsewhere. Registration prevents your content from being discussed and spreading online. It hurts page views too.
[edit] Link to Relevant Blog Entries
Sites like the Washington Post are already partnering with Technorati to show “Who’s Blogging” about the story you are viewing (see left). Why bother? If I’m a blogger writing about a news event, I’m going to link to the Post story as a way of promoting my entry. It is a great way to facilitate discussion about (and links to) your content. In addition, the “Who’s Blogging” feature serves as a real time letters to the editor page.
[edit] Partner with Local Bloggers
Lots of newspapers have their own blogs with content provided by overworked reporters. The quality of these blogs varies wildly from site to site. Why not partner with popular local bloggers and create a “best of” blog feed for your city/region? This seems like a good way to liven up your content and establish deep ties with bloggers in your region.
Some newspapers like the Austin American-Statesman and Houston Chronicle have taken a step further by offering readers space to blog on their sites. In return for creating content and providing insight from readers, the newspapers have widgets throughout their sites that display the latest entries by bloggers separated into topics. This practice can foster a greater connection between the paper and its readers as it provides just another reason for bloggers and site visitors to regularly visit the paper's site to look for content and, of course, ads.
[edit] Offer Alternative Views of Your Content
Lots of newspapers have their own blogs with content provided by overworked reporters. The quality of these blogs varies wildly from site to site. Why not partner with popular local bloggers and create a “best of” blog feed for your city/region? This seems like a good way to liven up your content and establish deep ties with bloggers in your region.
[edit] Modernize Your Site’s Graphic Design
Most of the newspaper sites we looked at had designs straight out of 2001. They used half of the screen real estate available on today’s wide screen monitors and looked sort of like online swap meets. The New York Times and Austin American Statesman are examples of sites with good, modern designs.
[edit] Learn from Craigslist
In our study we didn’t look much at the Classified sections of the websites. But from what I’ve seen, newspapers could learn lots of lessons by looking at the efficient way Craigslist presents its content. Like Google, it’s brilliant because it is simple. Classified sections on newspapers sites are neither.
[edit] Make your content work on cell phones and PDAs
Sixteeen of the twenty one largest Japanese newspaper offer versions of their paper that work on a cell phone. I don’t think a single US paper includes this option, although Dave Winer has helped some sites out and put together mobile-friendly versions of a few papers as a public service.
[edit] Allow Users to Comment on Every Article
(Via Micropersuasion). I think this is a great idea although for some papers it may be unrealistic. It would take a lot of time to manage all the discussion that is generated. But if the paper can pull it off they should. It will help them build a Digg style community of users. This ties in to some good advice from Thomas Power: Become a social network.
Note: In our study we found that 13 of the top 100 U.S. papers were already doing this.
However, newspapers must realize that different site visitors that may use comment features have varying levels of commitment. Some news mavens with a lot of time on their hands frequent comment threads on particular stories to engage in a dialogue with other commenters while other merely want to pitch in their two cents worth of opinion. The later type of person will likely feel intimidated to submit a comment in a thread with those who actively patrol and contribute comment discussions. Thus, to appease both types of commenters -- and all those in between, papers can offer two forms of comment features on each story. A discussion thread feature will appease those site visitors who want to engage in dialogue in an on-line forum while a snap judgment option will enable commenters who lack the desire or time to read an entire article followed by many detailed comments (sometimes well over 100 in number) without concern of disrupting a discussion or obligating themselves to frequently monitoring the thread in an attempt to appease the other interlocutors.
[edit] Improve Search Features
The search functionality on most newspaper sites is terrible. I actually resort to using Google News as an alternative if I’m looking for a particular story.
[edit] Use Better HTML
Joe Clark. From the looks of things, lots of papers haven’t jumped on the CSS bandwagon. Implementing cleaner HTML would improve load times for users and ultimately save money by reducing server load. A related issue noted by Angelos is the abuse of cookies by newspaper site. Why use five when one will do?
[edit] Focus on Local and Regional News
Mike Driehorst. “Unless it’s of significant, historical or national importance, don’t put national/international news on your front page.” Most papers value is in their local coverage - focus on that.
[edit] Open Up Your Archives
Many papers only keep 10 days of content up on their sites and/or charge for older content. Making more of this content available for free would be a great service to researchers and also help serve up more page views.
[edit] Provide Multilingual Versions
Gabrielle Tonelli. A few papers we looked at in California were doing this. It’s a good idea if it is economic feasible. The audience for every website is ultimately global.
[edit] Offer Supplemental Content
Reporters do loads of research when writing stories. Why note post some of the extra stuff on your website? Bruce writes that it “would both make the web site more valuable and improve the credibility of newspapers. It’s really insane to just reprint the same material that is in the print edition.”
[edit] Open Up the Letter to the Editor Process
Why not just post every letter you receive instead of just the 2/3 that make the cut for the print edition? Associate them with the relevant article and let us know which articles are getting the most comments. This would have the effect of turning your site into a townhall of sorts. Only problem with this is that many letters come in still via regular mail instead of electronically.
