Blade's Web Page: U-G-L-Y

This is less annoying to me than the corner than curls inward and blocks whatever you're trying to read....

Also notice where it says "The Blade Electronic Edition"

The word electronic. It sounds so......1980's.

Online Edition OR Internet Edition would sound so much better.

Maggie:

Oh yeah! That is the worst type of ad, especially when they mask the "Close" button. Or those quai-popups that jump out if your cursor passes over the place where it is embedded.

I'm just glad they jam the "green edition" in my UT inbox every morning around 5.

So after everyday for about a year, I have a couple hundred unread emails and a lot of deleting to do.

And while we are at it I have given up on WTOL's site. Way to much clutter - a gazillion ads - just too much crap on it. I will get local news somewhere else.

that is very ugly. Even my adblock mozilla add-on could not stop that eyesore from loading.

(laughs at estioney's acerbic take)

Thomas: That was harder than heck to unsubscribe from, but at some point I managed to get rid of it. Actually, I think I created a rule to send it to junk mail.

Molsonator: agreed, and because of the clutter the WTOL page is a slow loading beast.

Now I'm craving an Egg McMuffin.

For less clutter, access the mobile version of the Blade at http://m.toledoblade.com

TV news sites are brutal. I wish they offered a simple Web page somewhere on their site that I could bookmark, which only contained the titles to local news stories along with a date stamp at the end of the title. Something like the basic-looking Yahoo! Sports News page.

One way to access local news is to follow them on Twitter. Create your own river of news feed.

Twitter accounts:

• NBC24
• WTOL
• Fox Toledo
• 13ABC
  • 13ABC Storm Team
• Toledo Free Press
• Toledo City Paper
• Toledo Blade
• University of Toledo
• WXUT
• Independent Collegian???
• Detroit News
• Monroe News
• Ann Arbor News

And some others.

Another Twitter account: BG News

It would be nice if these other local news orgs would feed their story links to Twitter. Maybe they are. And for some of these, it would be handy if their news stories actually remained on their Web sites.

• La Prensa
• Toledo Business Journal
• The Maumee Mirror
• The Press Newspapers - Maumee Bay Press, The Metro, The Suburban
• Perrysburg Messenger Journal
• Rossford Record Journal
• Toledo Journal
• Point & Shoreland Journal
• Bedford Now
• BG Sentinel Tribune
• The Findlay Courier
• Port Clinton News Herald
• The UT Independent Collegian
• WSPD
• Sojourner's Truth

The Blade's website is a travesty. And a joke.

It's not like you can't make a newspaper website work well and look good:

http://www.latimes.com/

The blade's website is offensively ugly, and impossible to use. Why does every search open in a new window? I stopped going once they did the disgusting tiled banner ads. What year are we living in? The website looks like something straight out of 1999

Looks like $10k in ad money* buys some serious influence. *(I have no idea what McD's paid for the 2-day spot - just a guess).

Obviously, it's money well-spent as the ad - partnered with the more-informative banners - is hard to miss. But seriously, they could have taken a couple extra minutes to coordinate the color scheme a little better. McD's maroon is just not gelling with the Blade's blue palette.

Also, what is up with the Blade? When did a website's wallpaper become a rentable commodity? I know their print division has been losing money for some time, but this might be taking the whole 'monetize the web' thing a bit too far.

Maybe the City of Toledo website should consider the idea of selling its background to adverstisers to help with the budget. But then again...who would advertise there? How many people really visit it? I think it all looks very Sports Arena, or those backdrops behinfd the President when he speaks.

Design wise, it's high time they make the leap into something circa 2002. Just for the sake of consistency and all.

I'm glad I am not the only person who has though this. The BBC World NEws website is a great example of what I think news websites should aim to be.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/ - this is imo the perfect news website.

Looks like somebody either: a) reads Toledo Talk; or b) had their eyeballs scorched, as the website just changed:

HILARIOUS! while it's a noble effort, I think they miss the point that a tiled advertising background is tacky and distracting no matter the color. Also weird they are using such a low rez / fuzzy Mc Donald's logo. If I was Mickey D's i'd be unhappy.

also, while not the best looking website either, why does the Toledo Blade's sister paper have such a better site? couldn't they just have one nice design for both papers?

http://www.post-gazette.com/

And do they take into consideration that some people (myself included sometimes) will NOT shop somewhere out of spite if you annoy them? LOL!

I look at the Blade & WTOL.com every day. The sites have never bothered me.

But I don't tend to care much about aesthetics, as long as I can find what I want. I'm pretty good at tuning out stuff I don't care about, like advertisements, etc.

(Maybe that's why I was so amused at the massive uproar when Facebook changed its design - I barely noticed. Lol)

Interesting ancient Poynter Online story from January 2003 titled The Best Designed News Sites.

Identity

• The New York Times
• MSNBC
• USA Today

Reader-Friendly

• Christian Science Monitor
• CNN
• International Herald Tribune

The Beauty Queen

• International Herald Tribune

More than just a pretty face

• BBC
• The Washington Post

Simplicity

• Ananova
• Canadian Broadcasting Company
• International Herald Tribune

What people are really reading

• Fark
• 1st Headlines
• Slashdot

Other

• The Obscure Store

The media critic in me says "I guess we won't be seeing any hard hitting exposes on McDonalds for the next two days"...

jr, you rock, are you in the newspaper biz or just a netizen of the highest order? :)

"are you in the newspaper biz or just a netizen of the highest order"

No and probably not.

I sometimes monitor news about the media.

Some sites I read:

• The Nieman Journalism Lab
• PBS: MediaShift Idea Lab
• Editor and Publisher
• Romenesko
• The Editor's Log
• BuzzMachine
• Press Think
• Recovering Journalist
• paidContent
• Cyber Journalist

"why does the Toledo Blade's sister paper have such a better site?"

And last fall, the Post-Gazette implemented something new called PG+.

Sep 1, 2009 Toledo Talk posting: Block Communications adds new members-only site to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I am laughing so hard at the color change.
Considering the colors and all the stuff that goes behind trademark law...Im betting the color change on the McD logo is actually a big no no.

I noticed that historymike's screen shots show a lot more of the background than I see on my computer.

The only time I really can see the wallpaper is when the page is first opened, right before the content comes up. I don't see it as a border surrounding the stories, like in historymike's images.

Am I the only one who doesn't get the border?

your monitor resolution must be set to a lower rez than ours. I see a ton of background when I visit

Maybe. I see it the same way at home & at work, but I suppose that both monitors could be set that way.

Perhaps that's why their website doesn't seem to annoy me as much as it does the rest of you? I'm not subjected to as much of the background. Lol

If do you a view source on the Blade site, you'll see a width of 940 pixels. So a wide, high-res monitor will show a lot of the McDonald's background.

My old, low-res laptop shows only a small amount of the McDonald's background, but it's more than enough.

If the Blade adds any more cruft to the top of their home page, their content will begin below the fold on my laptop. The title for that dog story begins 50% down the screen. That's a lot of wasted real estate above. Well, I guess it's not wasted if it contains large ads.

I will congratulate the Blade for producing those salary databases of taxpayer-funded employees. The fact that it's pissing some people off means it's a good thing. It's public information. The Blade also produces that Google maps crime blotter mashup. They need to create a lot more of those database-journalism mashup tools like what's at EveryBlock. The Blade has access to a lot of info.

I agree. There are things they do very well, and i'd like to see more of it. As far as the fold is concerned, most of my web designer friends (and I have a lot of them) would never be allowed to design a website that had most of the key content starting 1/2 way to the fold, or below the fold. It's a huge web design / user experience no-no.

Small excerpts from the Mar 22, 2010 useit.com column Scrolling and Attention

The Apr 6, 2010 useit.com column Horizontal Attention Leans Left

being from Pittsburgh, I read the Pittsburgh Post Gazette online. Since the Blade and the Post are sister papers, I thought that they'd have similar websites. They don't. The Blade really stinks.
And I agree with Mrs Thurber. That curling edge rolling over what I"m trying to read is really annoying.

Then there are those roll-down quasi-popups that obliterate the screen for 5-10 seconds, like the promo for Wicked today, and the Blade popups that get blocked. This morning the commercial blight was even worse than yesterday, and my entire screen was filled with advertisements and notices that my browser blocked popups:

Wow, that's reallyyyyy bad. This is why I do not visit the Blade website, or take it seriously. Its unorganized, ugly, and the advertising is just offensive to good taste.

Yech! How annoying with all that advertising in the background. Then that dinosaur comes across the screen. They must be desperate for ads.

Even worse with the Huntington background. Way too much white space. I can't even read it.

Thank you for the critiques! It's very valuable. Thanks to historymike for starting the thread.

Paul

(I work for The Blade)

I tweeted the Blade about this--here's their response:
"Thanks for the comment. Others also w/ that opinion. > 400 Blade families relying on paychecks advertiser funded. We'll try."

That was me, responding as @toledonews, taxiang.

We've been discussing this internally. I will copy the page and make sure your suggestions are considered.

Thanks, again.

Paul

I stopped following the blade on Facebook & Twitter, and almost immediately got this message on twitter from paulhem:

"@upso Tell me it ain't so! You stopped following @toledonews :( What can I do?"

looks like a friend of mine also stopped following the blade on twitter and got a similar message from paulhem

"@kelegraph Noticed that you stopped following @ToledoNews May I help to make you reconsider. Is there anything that we could do to keep you?"

Paul - to answer "400 Blade families relying on paychecks advertiser funded. We'll try." is not good PR. It implies the advertisiers run the show - cash is more important. It's like the saying "if it saves one life...". Well how about thinking harder to save many lives. If you guys are smart over there you can figure out a way to make money and make it appealing to those who visit. After all visits/hits are how you sell to advertisiers.

I can guarantee you the LA Times pulls in more advertising dollars from their site than the Blade's. Good design is good business... but what can you expect from podunk.

And, upso, wow, thats pathetic and desperate.

toledolen_ i wasn't posting it because it was pathetic. I just find it really fascinating how the different media outlets are attempting to reach out to their audiences.

toledolen_ I make no apologies regarding asking upso or anyone else to follow us, again, once they leave. I'm sure he took it in the spirit it was offered. Also, I would still request the follow so that we can interact easier with such an intelligent leader in the design world.

Frankly, I will fight for every follower to attempt to learn what I can do to make things better.

If you find it pathetic and desperate, then I must be doing something right.

Molsonator.

Thank you for the comment.

I disagree. We have to pay the bills. I have to work with our business side, and they are looking for ways to fund the journalism efforts.

It has never been a secret that newspapers rely on advertisers for most of their revenue.

Are you suggesting that I misrepresent when I answer questions?

Does The Blade have a reputation of pandering to business interests? Obviously, not!

Once again, we have over 400 Toledo area families who rely on our advertisers for their livelihood. That's just the truth. And, most likely, it has been that way for most of the 175 years that this publication has existed

That being said, I will take all of your comments in to my superiors so that they can benefit from them as I have.

Also,

The Ohio contingent of Society of Professional Journalists gave toledoblade.com the 2009 First Place award, with the Columbus Dispatch in Second Place:

Best Web Site

FIRST:
www.toledoblade.com, Staff, The
Toledo Blade.

SECOND:
www.dispatch.com, Staff, The
Columbus Dispatch.

Download LINK

Do we have a lot more work to do? Of course! And thanks to all of your comments, we have more to consider.

Thanks again!

So Paul, is the Blade going to report the pitbull attack on Friday in South Toledo or the one that happened tonight on the East Side which put 3 people (including a cop) in the hospital?

THIS is very interesting.

http://www.toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/comments.pl/12/4128

Is Paul Helm a pitbull owner, himself????

yikes

Under Ohio law, owners of "pit bulls" must maintain at least $100,000 of liability insurance coverage for their dogs.

Do you, Paul Helm, have coverage of your dog(s)?