boston.com always seems to launch some intrusive exciting new ad campaign the day something horrible happens. Like today:
Via the eagle-eyed Jonelle, who warns: Avert your eyes:
... Because nothing subtly underscores a tragic top news story like stick figures dancing in a sea of blinding orange. ...
Earlier:
The exploding-glass ad over news about the Emerson scaffolding collapse.
Dude, you look like American Idol exploded all over my screen.
Heather grumps about a fire story that got the name of a Quincy street wrong:
... It's not the biggest deal. It just bothered me before I got to finish my coffee this morning.
Note to Globe: I will gladly proofread your website for a very reasonable price. ...
Earlier:
Cumming Highway.
The Globe moves West Roxbury.
Steve Garfield reads a Globe story about funny YouTube videos that doesn't link to a couple of the videos:
How many times do I have to blog about it, write to the editor, write to the article author, to get the Boston Globe to link to websites when they are the main topic of the story?
Today's Business Filter on teleconferencing says:
Save yourselves! Here is a great set of guidelines to help ensure you don't have a botched call.
But doesn't provide a link to said great guidelines. It's enough to set off a normally mild-mannered John Daley (who found the site and then waded through five pages of archives to find the guidelines):
You know, the first thing I thought when I woke up this morning was "Gosh, did Punxatawney Phil see his shadow this morning?" How did we ever survive without boston.com, which recognized the importance of this breaking news with a NEWS UPDATE banner right at the top of the home page? Let's see you top that, blogosphere.
Well, OK, more of a refinement to my weary eyes. Looks a bit cleaner than the older look, although I think there's way too much stuff splattered around the logo - and way too much stuff on the home page, which just goes on and on forever, but, hey, unlike certain other large organizations we could name, at least boston.com made sure its site would still work when more than 12 people at once tried to call it up.
Jonelle Lonergan, however, basically goes: Blecch:
Writers for both the paper and boston.com are rebelling against a management proposal to tie future ink-stained raises to increasing revenue at the dead-trees edition, but not the pixellated one, because guess where the revenues are going up and where they're going down?
Via Dan Kennedy.
Vigilant Dan Kennedy notices some interesting workshops posted on the boston.com user events page, involving, um, interpersonal communications skills. The listings were still up around 10:30 a.m. 7 p.m. today (note: finally taken down). A screen capture:
I spent the weekend chasing gubernatorial candidates with my camcorder.....produced three video clips....and then I posted them on a video blog that's linked to the Globe's politics page.
I asked the candidates about their favorite music...and I asked Chris Gabrieli about the first concert he attended.....(it turns out his first show was Elvis Costello at the Orpheum in 1978).
There are three clips so far - one each for Reilly, Gabrieli, and Patrick - and they run about five minutes long. It's worth a look!
- Emily Sweeney
Dan Kennedy says concentrate on boston.com, not the Globe.
Mats Tolander begs to differ:
... The Globe, after all, does have an existing distribution system, an existing subscriber base, and an existing advertiser base. Tending to those bases strikes me as more important than throwing boston.com up as some kind of Hail Mary pass. ...
That's the question Mass. Marrier is asking: Why did it take the local media so long to get around to covering the the guy who'd gotten hit by the Orange Line train this morning - beyond posting a completely non-descriptive T travel advisory?
Bruce Allen reports that a reader found 12 typos in the online version of a Bob Ryan column today.
David Scott wonders how Steve Silva keeps his job at the Globe, notes that Michael Gee now has a blog and ponders what's funny about a cartoon showing a black sportswriter diving into a crowd of Klan members.
Dan Kennedy adds his comments to the should-blogs-have-comments discussion (his basic comment: A qualified yes). But Chris Cagle thinks the real issue is not whether blogs have comments, but whether they have links:
... It's the lack of linking - not to other blogs, not even to news sources outside the Globe - that makes the boston.com stable of blogs seem so artificial. ...
Bryan Person reports that boston.com is re-evaluating its stance against allowing comments on its blogs, which he says won't come a moment too soon:
... To be considered a true player in the blogosphere, Boston.com must take the shackles off its talented bloggers and allow them to engage in a true multi-directional conversation. One-way communication online is simply no longer acceptable.
Spatch captures the boston.com home page with dueling Moussaoui bulletins - one declaring him sentenced to death and one having him sent away for life.
... I guess that's what you call showing both sides of the issue.
Does anyone know what happened to the news page on Boston.com? It went from featuring blogs from the unwashed masses (like http://www.commuterrant.com) in the sidebar to now only featuring Boston Globe-sanctioned blogs.
Amy's default browser page is boston.com. She's not too enamored of the new Cingular background:
... Dude. You look like American Idol exploded all over my monitor. All you need is a few Coke and Ford ads and a hammered ex-pop star blathering to make me feel like I'm watching Taylor Hicks assault me through the television. Dial it down a bit. I had Cingular, and it sucked, and no matter what you, Ryan Seacrest or anybody else tells me will convince me otherwise. Get back to the content, or at least get rid of that offensive orange border. ...
Comes from the Globe's Mac Daniels, who writes:
We've been remiss on blogging today because of a plane crash, which we're covering and which is amazing because the pilot survived after falling from the sky in a plane made of plywood and Styrofoam. ...
Oh, have I mentioned recently that I write for the Globe, too? Just not fulltime or nothin'.
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