Hold the Presses…
Seattle Weekly just launched a new web site, featuring finicky drop-down tabs, “stylish” fonts that were “invented at Microsoft,” and “colors that evoke Seattle and the Northwest” (because nothing says “Seattle” like maroon and periwinkle.)
Content-wise, the site’s new web-only features include a list of stories that got the most online hits in 2005 (bad news for Geov Parrish: Not one of the self-proclaimed “only consistently progressive local” columnist’s stories made the cut); searchable calendar listings that, as of this afternoon, didn’t work, and a list of local blogs that ranges from the well-known (Seattlest, Sound Politics, Horse’s Ass), to the rightfully obscure (Gluten-Free Girl, an “account of living with celiac disease”; Microsoft Watch, which offers “really inside baseball about technical developments.”)
Mysteriously overrepresented on the Weekly’s list of links: the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (four of the P-I’s seven blogs get plugs); big business (six of ten “biz/tech” blogs are about Microsoft, two are about Boeing and the ninth issurpriseabout Starbucks). Mysteriously underrepresented: Local politics (not one Seattle-focused political blog makes the list, although a blog about “local politics of the Eastside suburbs” does) and the Stranger’s own Slog, which, shockingly, merits nary a mention.
What will the Weekly’s impending takeover by the New Times media chain mean for its redesigned web site? Hard to say, but a look at some of the chain’s other clonish web sites could offer the Weekly’s online readers a glimpse of the future.
and we're apparently allowed to read it now! amazing.