Today I got an email from the North County Times inviting me to try out their new “my” portal. I was so underwhelmed that I felt driven to action. This will be the first in a series of blog posts focusing on how the NC Times just doesn’t understand where technology is and where it is going. With the number of high tech companies that exist in the Times circulation area it is a real shame that they just don’t get it.
What is it?
my.NCTimes.com is a local social network for people, groups and businesses located in the North County San Diego and Southwest Riverside County areas of Southern California.What can I do?
Most importantly, you can finally change your account picture!
Wow, I can update my picture, stop the presses! Once again the NC Times is chasing yesterday’s technology. People are not served by closed portals. They want to aggregate content from other sources as they see fit. They don’t want to have accounts crossing multiple sites, having to maintain lists of usernames and passwords, having to visit dozens of sites daily to keep up. They want to access information from whatever device is handy.
I certainly hope that they were kidding when they said updating your picture was the most important thing you can do on the site.
As newspapers across the country lose circulation, if this is the best that the NC Times can come up with I fear it will not survive. For the next few posts I am going to dedicate this space to discussions on what people want from local newspapers and how those newspapers can monetize those opportunites.
Tags: newspaper, social media, technology