All new This is Staffordshire for 2011
Today sees the first major build of the Northcliffe suite of newspaper sites which includes The Sentinel for a number of years.
Last years update was just cosmetic, where as this years update will see the Sentinel's online news offering enter what they hope is a new dawn for newspapers.
Borrowing heavily from Hyperlocal websites such as MyTunstall and Pits N Pots, the new site will allow people to submit their own news and reviews.
One of my main concerns about the old site was that people had no easy way of finding stories they'd taken the time to post comments on days after the article was posted, so after years of suggesting modifications to the sentinel that people can easily follow what stories you or the people you follow such as friends (or sworn enemies), so you can easily continue to debate. I personally feel proud that the Northcliffe's Dev team have finally taken my suggestion on board, and hope to see more fluent and continued debates long after the story has left home page.
One of the major changes that the Newspaper group want to make to the online newspaper is to mix in it's other offerings such as reviews, it's main bread and butter markets such as Jobs, Cars, Homes into the home page.
From early previews the home page seems very cluttered and unstructured, in an aim to add these elements into the mix. If this proves a hit with the readers of the online news will yet to be seen.
It's make or break time for the newspapers at the minute, and a huge gamble has been made on this new platform. A gamble that might just work. David Elks, web editor for This is Staffordshire has recently proved that online advertising can work using the coupons system he's been making the most of recently, driving users to business profiles on the new places platform.
If you don't like the new home page, you don't have to live with it. By simply adding /news to the webaddress gets you a more traditional view of the news.
I do have a major concern though. The home page isn't mobile friendly. When viewed from my Android browser, the non uniform layout made navigating around the screen.
I'm hoping that Northcliffe will rectify this major flaw quickly and provide a gateway homepage optimised for mobiles. With the amount on money and resources available, I'm quite concerned that this wasn't a priority.
Comments
Well the new Sentinel Site
Well the new Sentinel Site looks a mess to be polite, a colourful jumble with no structure. The site is taking minutes to load (thats nothing new). Some headings actualy work when clicked on, but for the most part the links are so slow (make a cuppa and then wait some more) it's a pain, then the content you would expect is unavailable due to some error! Doh! Oh and now its saying "Sorry.... We're currently doing a major upgrade to the site. Please come back soon to see the new features". This is disgusting for a public news provider such as the Sentinel. We come to the site normaly to check local news etc huh! this new attempt is a big step backward, we don't have time to waste searching for stuff!
Reminds us of Microsoft, produce a product, have the public test it, wait for the complaints and then spend years trying to fix it, make a new version with a new set of problems, seems all to familiar! Wake up Sentinel, produce the product, test it to make sure it all works and then let the public use it.
It's a bit of a car crash at
It's a bit of a car crash at the minute with the content all over the place and hardly relevant to Stoke in places. The front page is just a mixture of everything, almost like the editor has been in the content bin picked up a few handfuls and thrown it at a wall, A hotel review with a voucher for a cut & finish next to a news article.
I'll be interested to see how it looks at the end of the week, will it get better as more content is loaded?
I really wish I had been nicer about Goecities…
http://www.flashpointsocialmedia.com/Area51/Orion/geocities.html
i love that starfield &
i love that starfield & animations takes me back a few years
I've been invited to add some
I've been invited to add some stories and this is what happened.
Paul, When did The Sentinel
Paul,
When did The Sentinel become a public servicer? I'm pretty sure it's a private firm that can operate only by making money, and by people visiting the website (however good/bad it is) then it's not making a penny from you. Perhaps you should spend the 37p on the paper, that won't crash or take minutes to load.
Regards.
I can see why they want
I can see why they want varied content on the site, to make it the be all and end all of news, cars, jobs, property, listings in Staffordshire, but like Mike says, throwing it at a wall, and hope people have the patience to find it is a bit of a gamble.
One of the criticisms of the last site was there were only 5 stories on the home page, so they upped it to 10. The same applies to here, people want news first and foremost. Everything else is irrelevant until you need to look for it. It almost becomes like annoying wall paper.
Saying all of that, I do like the colour schemes, and the bar that says how many reviews, events, vouchers there are on the site.
Blimey, that's a bit of a
Blimey, that's a bit of a nose dive.
I've used the site a little
I've used the site a little bit more over the last day, and certain parts are really beginning to grow on me.
I'm really liking the way the page lists pagers work. When you click on them, they scroll you to the top of the screen and without having to load the entire page again, just a little part of the screen is refreshed. I thought that was an inspired touch.
If like me, you also like your social networks (check MyTunstall out on Twitter & Facebook), the tools for sharing stories on those networks are much easier to use.
But the thing I'm loving the most from the all new system, is this
This bar will hopefully really drive attention to the parts of the site that you wouldn't necessarily look at.
In time I'm hoping the home page can be adapted or settle to be more balanced.
Sorry Matt, I prefer the old
Sorry Matt, I prefer the old version, you could find what you wanted much easier.
This is a mish mash of
This is a mish mash of regurgitated rubbish.
I have had an account with the Sentinel for 6 years now and cannot log on.
The presentation of this is awful.Wheres the Letters page gone.
All it is now is an extension of old pitsnpots blogs.
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