BrianManzullo.com

My initial thoughts on AnnArbor.com, the now-live online news organization

Late Thursday night, the party came early for AnnArbor.com. The site went live for the first time in replacement of The Ann Arbor News, which ended its long run the same day.

Like I said in the previous entry, this is a big step for not just Ann Arbor, but for the journalism industry in general. As far as I can recall, no city of Ann Arbor’s size lost its only community newspaper and replaced it with an online news organization like AnnArbor.com. Some anticipated this launch as a possible step forward in the new wave of journalism. It’ll be interesting to see the response in the coming weeks as this site takes its baby steps and grows to form.

I checked the site out for a little while, reading a few stories, checking out the navigation and looking through some of the advertising (in a section called “Deals & More.”). First things first. I don’t claim to be an expert on building a news site, although I’ll get to take a crack at it in the next month or two. I am purely giving my thoughts as an online journalist and reader of many news Web sites, and I would want to see if I was reading the local publication. Furthermore, I understand this is AnnArbor.com’s first day up. I imagine it will improve greatly as it receives feedback, troubleshoots and tries new things, especially on the multimedia side.

Without further ado, here are my thoughts:

Pros

• Good opening-day content. Although it was a little lacking in multimedia, AnnArbor.com had stories to offer in virtually every topic, and the handful I got a chance to read were well-written and detailed. And the site is consistently updating with new stories if you refresh the home page once every hour or so. A couple of minor errors, such as missed periods, were found, but no real mess-ups, at least from what I saw.
• The readability is excellent. You will see a lot of news sites on the Internet that cram information into small spaces, trying to get as much content on the home page as possible. That can be hard to read for older audiences not used to using computers. AnnArbor.com veered toward simplicity here with a lot of spacing and slightly bigger fonts, a good move if you are trying to attract all possible Ann Arbor audiences. Plus, load times are extremely fast.
• Good reader interaction. Maybe it’s because the debut of AnnArbor.com was so close but, even on the eve of its supposed launch, there already were a handful of comments on several stories. Several AnnArbor.com employees are talking within comments as well. There is a section on the main site called “Your Voice” in which readers supply, well, their voices. The interaction is prevalent on such a young site, as it was one of the site’s biggest goals coming in. I hope AnnArbor.com continues to make strides in this area.
• Clean advertising. Some news sites are dominated by ads, taking a toll on the rest of the content and art. But, for the most part, AnnArbor.com is clean. You will find ads in between story listings, but they are not annoying and flashy to those uninterested. The “Deals & More” section is fairly easy to navigate upon first viewing. You can view listings by topic or by business, and even sign up to an RSS feed. It’s fairly easy to find the “Advertise with us” button along the right sidebar.
• Other little things: The “votes” function is nice if people don’t want to leave a comment, but would like to recommend the story to other readers anyway. A2 Today on the right sidebar, while it features the same links as under the flag, does give you the number of today’s updates (good if you’re checking periodically each day). The video on how to use the site will be helpful for those new to using a computer to check the news.

Cons

• The home page lacks visual appeal and offers little variation in stories’ play. One tweet I found following launch said, “It looks like one of those fake websites you wind up at if you type in nyyimes.com or something.” Ouch. Although I wouldn’t go that far, as it is right now, AnnArbor.com has no centerpiece for your eye to focus on first. There is not enough stories on the front page, and little variation in play — a City Hall fire virtually would have as much play as a pipe installation in a township building. Photos also are underplayed, making the site look too bland. For starters, I feel like it needs to split its left column, since it’s too wide anyway, and add topic headers of cycling content and font size variation for its news content. I get what AnnArbor.com is trying to do, but readers’ eyes need more direction.
  
• Where’s the identity? Even though AnnArbor.com’s main focus is catering to its community, there is little effort to inform people who find your site via Google News or another aggregator where you are covering and what exactly you are. The flag could use something extra, such as, “The 24-hour online news publication for Ann Arbor, Michigan.” A skyline implemented in the flag would immediately help, or other significant landmarks, such as Michigan Stadium. I just feel a wayward viewer would have to investigate to find out where this site is covering, and that is not a good thing if you’re looking for that extra traffic.
  
• Redundancy in news navigation. I like some of the navigation options, such as A2 Topics on the right side. But with the same buttons below the flag, is all of it necessary? Furthermore, why can you find “UM Football” under “Topics and Neighborhoods,” but not “Sports” when I hover my mouse over it? Both News and Sports need mouseover functions to include more topics under them, because that is where readers are expecting them. The fifth navigation below the flag is just fine as an All Neighborhoods tab where readers can navigate to it for news and sites specific to their community.
  
• Other little things: I find little value in posting PDF’s of crosswords and sudokus — I question how many people will actually print them out. Promotion of social media sites such as Twitter is underplayed, as is RSS feed functionality. There should be a dropdown menu of some sort for the site’s blogs, as they are difficult to find and need better play, as well. And, finally, photo cutlines need better positioning — some are found at the very bottom of their respective stories.
  

Other things I would add, from the top of my head: A mobile site (right now, it’s in pre-AnnArbor.com form). A page for people to view and buy photos. A “Related Posts” section within posts to drive traffic to other stories. Much more multimedia in the form of photo galleries and Soundslides.

Overall, there are several good things to be had on AnnArbor.com. Nice content thus far, and casual readers will take a liking to how clean and simple the site is. But it could be better. For a site that was hyped to be something completely different from traditional news sites, it seems rather ordinary. Our eyes still need direction upon opening a news site, much like a page design strives for. I understand it’s early, again. I’m sure these guys are hard at work in developing the site and doing more things with AnnArbor.com, and perhaps they have different things in mind than I do.

And, finally, good luck to AnnArbor.com. They are taking on a difficult task in revitalizing local journalism after its only newspaper went under. I hope they continue to build and have great success with this undertaking.

Feel free to share your thoughts, as well– If I missed something, or got something completely wrong, please let me know. Thank you!

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New feature: Read what I’m reading, thanks to Publish2

Just yesterday, I added a new feature to the right sidebar on my page, below my recent posts and above my Twitter feed, called “What I’m Reading.”

This is a widget designed to feed the stories I linked from Publish2, a collaborative journalism platform which, among its features, powers “link journalism.” It allows news organizations and journalists to take the links they read and share them in one spot with one click of a button. If you are a journalist, I highly recommend getting an account with Publish2.

In a nutshell, I will take any links which I feel are worthy of reading and link it with Publish2, which will enter the feed on that right side. Soon, I may organize them into topics, such as New Media/Journalism and Sports. (Which I mean to cover more often, but haven’t quite gotten there yet) Anything you find under “What I’m Reading,” at least to me, is a highly recommended read.

Click here to subscribe to the RSS feed. I will add this under the widget soon, too.

Special thanks to Daniel Bachhuber, who designed the widget and helped me with an error during installation.

Another update on my sidebar: I’m continuing to add more links (below the Twitter feed) and organize them into different categories, such as journalism, blogroll and so on. Later today, I will add another category of places where to find me, such as Publish2 and Flickr.

Obviously, with me just entering my third week with this site, additions and fixes virtually are mandatory. Feel free to comment and give suggestions on what else you would like to see!

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Updates… and that’s all for now

PORTFOLIO UPDATE
+6 Photo
+1 Page Design

Just a quick update on what I posted earlier today. My photos are from the MLK March on CMU’s campus last January. (Expect cutlines for all the photos soon, by the way, just haven’t gotten to that yet) The design is a food cover I worked on Monday and Tuesday.

My hope is to go walking in downtown Grand Rapids this weekend with my camera to get photos of faces and places. I wanted to do it earlier this summer, but just haven’t gotten the opportunity.

Check for more updates soon!

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Some minor fixes

First of all, special thanks to those who checked out the site and gave me feedback. I really do appreciate it, as I will continue to work on the site to make it better and more functional.

I did fix a few minor things, for those who were having problems earlier:

1) You can now leave comments – the link to the comments was broken earlier. I messed up the permalink tool on WordPress. Please leave a comment if you tried to earlier!

2) The picture on my “About Me” page wasn’t updated earlier. It is now.

3) This is one thing I haven’t gotten to yet: My photos currently are unsorted by topic/event, but I’ll see if I can fix that this week. That will make flipping through them a lot easier instead of scrolling for the next set.

Thanks a lot, everybody, and hopefully you return soon!

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