I Tried Using New News Site ...

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., Jan. 18 2011 at 8:35 AM

Categories: Media

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... but half the site didn't load this morning. Instead, I kept getting the message, "Sorry you are experiencing a delay. Please try your request again." And it won't verify my subscriber account -- now I have to call just so I can read that story about how "Carrollton councilman urges residents to join him in losing weight." Um ... no. Of course, that'll get worked out soon enough; they had a launch date and were sticking to it, kinks and knots and all.

Still, "the next generation" desktop News doesn't look very 2.0 -- 1.2, maybe. (Everything's been shuffled around just enough to make it confusing, headlines are bigger, and blogs are now buried ... somewhere -- though there will be more of 'em!) Which may be the point: Jim Moroney did hint he's trying to move readers off the website and onto the iPad app, where most of the stories this morning are hidden behind the paywall. All is explained on the WTF page: "Although many sites may claim to offer local news, only dallasnews.com can provide online the insights and perspectives of the experienced journalists at The Dallas Morning News." That, right there, that's a shot.

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The front page makes governor bighair look like the second coming, and then there's all the sports news-only messiah-like. It's really not like journalism, or a newsmagazine, or anything natural. Question is ....how does the NYT cover both nyc and the world for free online, when the DMN now looks like a political advertisement--whipped up and frothy--but we are supposed to pay for it?
Except, you know, all the content and shit. And the fact that I won't see the same garbage "above the fold" day after day on the NYT
I'm glad they gave me a good reason to ignore them altogether now.
Basically, it borrows a lot from the NYT, but it a lot bluer with more ads. Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/
I asked the boyfriend on Sunday if he was planning to buy into DMN, more in jest than not, him knowing I am such a DOb groupie. He said, "Yeah, I probably will buy it." The bed was quiet that night, except for his snoring.
Same with comments on a lot of the Parkland articles.
They had a long time to figure this out and they could have delayed the launch until it was well tested and ready. This is a fiasco. Unless they unbury the blogs and fix the navigation, I won't have much of a reason to go there.
I wonder how newspapers like the Dallas Morning News react to this new Apple demand; will Apple do this in the US too (or do they already..is that why subscription prices are through the roof for the DMN?).. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.9d98f5078c22208156a5fddb2195a4d0.2e1&show_article=1
It's been a looong 20 years
Makes me miss the Times Herald.
"It's more than Dallas. It's more than the morning. It's more than the news." They make me stabby.
Can't get the comments to load - and I tried their 'suggestions'. Also getting delays on certain stories. I'm paying for two subscriptions and geees...seems to me there's going to be a huge fall-off in their traffic. I was trying to send out and post to Facebook the obit about Georgia Carroll who was the inspiration for the Spirit of The Centennial Statue at Fair Park (Women's Museum) and an actress, singer, model and the wife of bandleader Kay Kyser. She was a 1937 graduate of Woodrow so I wanted to get the world out to fellow alums - but the 'new' News was a hindrance. I found a way around it by posting the story from the TXCN site.
wow. this sucks.
The entire website reads like one for the DMN.
Where are the obituaries? Only one I could find was Twinkle Bayoud Underwood and that's old news....
Congrats, DMN. Your web page made a massive leap from a 1997 design all the way to 2003!
Yeah, that's how my blog looked 5 years ago. Welcome to 2005.
Same here. I cannot get it to load and get the same message. Totally worthless. If you are going to roll out something like this and make people pay through the nose, it should at least work. What a joke.
Yep, OC Blog hasn't updated since the 14th. Oh well.....
Is anyone else getting sick of the new DMN commercials?
the edblog didn't show up in my Google reader this a.m.
So after the free trial runs out, the online readership will plunge, plummet, dive, crash...to a number lower than the dead tree subscribers. Advertisers will then say, why? I predict a price increase March 1.
Just took it off my RSS. What a bunch of jerks....
it looks like they wiped out all the comments for the edboard's blog. when one clicks on the comments link for each posting, nothing comes up
when i click on the WTF page link I get the following Sorry you are experiencing a delay. Please try your request again. Error: V2
inconsistent loading and results. opinion blog doesn't show comment count, wonder if blogs will be behind paywall, and since I live outside the ODT delivery zone I looked to see what an online subscription would cost. well the lowest was price was for Sunday delivery plus online for about $3.78 per week. WTH?? that is just under $16 per month. would love to see them try to deliver the ODT Sunday final 5 star edition to me by 7 am ET on Sundays since I live in Virginia ;-) Did Jimmy 3 Sticks ever consider an online price divorced from the ODT? you know like the WSJ? for the WSJ I payless than $10 per month
It said I could keep reading for free for a limited time if I was a registered user. Tried to log in, and it took me to a page where I had to update profile. Address, phone number, first and last name were all mandatory. I went to NYtimes.com and removed the DMN website from my favorites toolbar. I'm done with it.
The iPad app hasn't been released. You're looking at the iPhone app on your iPad. That's why it looks bad.
Today's DMN Metro Section was a total of six pages - including obits and the weather. Not really very much in the way of "insights and perspectives of the experienced journalists..."
The iPad app sucks, for what it's worth.
"Can’t open the page “http://rangersblog.dallasnews.com/” because the server where this page is located isn’t responding." sweet...also, thanks DMN for today's Inside the Ranger's newsletter link that sent me to Evan's story from December 1st, 2010.
The new Dallas Morning News website is clearly an improvement over the old one, but it is FAR from cutting edge. And it's unfortunate that they've buried the blogs under each major topic area and then provided inconsistent placement for them and navigation to them across the site.
After all this time, this is the best they could come up with?
But the subscription stuff is free until Feb. 14. If you can log in and see it.
The layout looks cleaner than it did before in my opinion. However, I did perform an experiment. I turned off AdBlock Plus in Firefox and reloaded dallasnews.com. They still have the same amount of annoying ads, maybe even more. Are they gonna try to integrate 3 ad popups per page load in their iPad app, too?