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« A Note to Our Readers | Lunchtime Quickie »

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Media It's Tomorrow

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 12:28 PM

Dear people who wrote comments like this on my post yesterday about how ugly the new online PI is:

Their last print paper is today, so I'm not sure why their brand-new website would start today too. I'm waiting to see what it'll look like tomorrow.

The "brand-new PI" is up right now and it's the exact same boring format as yesterday. To those who said that the online PI is the same as it always was: You're wrong. There used to be more and varied content. To those who say it's fine: You're also wrong. They need to be reinventing this stuff from the ground up, and instead, they're running a full page of hotlinked words like this:

2f5a/1237396912-bluewords.jpg

At the very least, I wish I'd pulled up the PI's homepage today and found a blatant ripoff of the Huffington Post. Instead, I just got the same old boring unexciting, uninformative AOL-type layout. Where's the experimentation? Nobody is going to make this model work if they stick to the same old dumbass newspaper websites as they always have.

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The site won't even load now. Nice of them to upgrade their servers so people can actually read their product.

Posted by EmilyP on March 18, 2009 at 12:34 PM

I agree Paul. I'm hoping this is just a placeholder, but I'm not holding my breath.

Posted by Steven Bradford on March 18, 2009 at 12:48 PM

Where is the content from today? Everything from the top navigation (okay, the BigBlog is updated) is from yesterday or before with the exception of syndicated/wire content that probably auto-uploads. Definitely missing things like food/Rebekah Denn already.

Posted by Idaho Spud on March 18, 2009 at 12:57 PM

Worse yet, the content is pathetic. Shockingly weak, given that the world is watching.

Posted by Tony on March 18, 2009 at 1:05 PM

Jesus Christ, Paul -- up until last week, the people at the P-I didn't even know if they'd be working today. Pardon their sorry asses if they didn't immediately innovate the flying fuck out of their Web site.

BTW: They did launch a new mobile version of the P-I site between whiskey shots and goodbyes this week, though.

Leave the P-I reporting to Eli, fatty. He can handle it.

Posted by Andrew on March 18, 2009 at 1:17 PM

Dude, why not call me out directly? That comment was mine, and I was expecting something different today and didn't see it. I'm surprised. Stupid, stupid crouton!

Posted by leek on March 18, 2009 at 1:24 PM

This is the kind of magical content they are rocking: http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_wa…

Posted by Come on on March 18, 2009 at 1:27 PM

They should have rebuilt their website months ago, when it started to look more likely that the print edition was coming to an end, therefor making for a smooth transition. The way it happened, going from the printed PI to this sorry excuse for a website is more jarring a transition than when the Cardassians took back Terok Nor in season 5 of Deep Space Nine.

Posted by danhowes on March 18, 2009 at 1:52 PM

@8: Why? "Months ago," it was looking like the whole thing would be shut down. Why rebuild a walking corpse when you could spend the same time building your own portfolio to land a job somewhere real?

Posted by Andrew on March 18, 2009 at 2:09 PM

Chill. They are figuring this out as they go. #5 got it right: Until last week, no one even knew if this would happen. They'll get better as time goes on.

Posted by mediaboy on March 18, 2009 at 2:46 PM

They've succeeded in making the Seattle Times website look good by comparison.

To bad about the risible editorial content, tho.

Posted by NapoleonXIV on March 18, 2009 at 2:48 PM

what crap no wonder it went out of business and no one used it.. good riddence suckaz

Posted by totally john st on March 18, 2009 at 3:02 PM

Wake up - if you think Hearst didn't know they would keep the site version of their news organization, you're extremely naive. Just b/c the journalists didn't know doesn't mean Hearst didn't have folks building that site on their own servers.

Posted by basta! on March 18, 2009 at 10:30 PM