There are lots of differences between a great newspaper and a great newspaper website. I guess the same could be said for a not-so-great newspaper and its website.
One of the differences that surely does not get discussed in lofty journalistic circles is the problem of returning to an advertisement that catches your eye.
Frequently, I see an ad in the NYTimes, for examples - in print - and I remember later when something clicks or happens to make me think of it. If I still have the printed copy, which is most often as I tend to remember these things the same day or shortly after publication and our newspapers only get recycled once/week here -- I can go back to the printed paper and usually find the ad.
If I see an ad on the NYTimes website, and try to return to it, from my experience it is almost never there because of ad rotations and other formulas that fail anticipate that my clicking on the back button may have as much to do with an ad I saw there as an article. And, does the NYTimes or any other newspaper at least provide a list of advertisers that I can access and click on the one that I think might have been the one that just whooshed by me? No, or at least I've not found that list.
What an opportunity to remedy a frustration. Who will be first to do it? And how could this tie back into print?
Monday, February 8, 2010
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