The Asbury Park Press has the second highest circulation in the state. Pretty impressive (the Star-Ledger far outpaces the Press). Last week, the Press flipped over to a new, higher-tech website over at APP.com.
I’ll be honest – I think the new website is garbage. I used to be able to find all of the Monmouth County news in one spot and now it’s broken down by township. Listen, as a webmaster and Owner of a website design company I understand the desire for increased hits. Higher hits lead to greater click-through rates on advertisements and thus more income. Simple enough to understand.
But good grief…to have to click on each hometown to get Monmouth County news in total – it’s just too tedious for me. Like most of the online news consuming public, I only have a short period of time in the morning where I check for top stories in my area. By no means do I have the time to check each and every hometown so I can get my total Monmouth fill.
Here’s hoping that Gannett doesn’t destroy the Daily Record website next.
Why not set up a Google news search page like I have? It is very efficient at culling all the stuff you want to see by keywords and allows mods on the fly.
Eh, I’m trying not to over-Google-ize myself. I already use their Calendar system (which is GREAT), Gmail, and their picture services (besides the fact that they are my search engine of choice).
I also like going to the individual websites because you can see some of their “other” stories – which I always find interesting. My FireFox browser has the following news sites in the Bookmarks Bar: FOXNews.com, APP.com, MSNBC.com, CNN.com, USAToday.com, NYTimes.com, CBSNews.com, RealClearPolitics.com, OceanGroveRecord.com, DailyRecord.com, TheCoaster.net, RecorderNewspapers.com/roxbury_register/, Atlanticville.GMNews.com
I try to get a broad range of news and “other” stories!
I have generalized topics like “jersey politic” “northwest Jersey” and I find with “the google” that it pulls in many sources I never would have looked at. I even have a category for my brother in law the planning professor who is often quoted.