The NC Times New Look

August 6th, 2009

A comparison to the NY Times

This review compares the site redesign done at the NC Times to the NY Times. It should be known that the NY Times spends oodles of money on their electronic assets and has in the past developed entire programs for the display of their news.

A screenshot of the North County Times website.

Screen shot of the North County Times

Screen shot of the New York Times website

Screen shot of the New York Times

These two screen shots show the pages in a standard Firefox window at 1024×768, the most common display size currently in use.

Both websites are displayed with a horizontal scroll bar, this is an artifact of replicating the screen size. The scroll bar would not be present for a user full screen on a 1024×768 display. The inclusion of this scroll bar does affect the percentage numbers below.

I have left the light blue-gray box on the top of the NY Times page even though it can be removed.

Category NY Times NC Times
Number of Headlines 10 5
Number of Article Words 48 33
Number of Pictures 2 1[1]
Traffic No Yes
Weather No[2] Yes
Content Begins ~ 350 px (57%)[3] ~ 380 px (62%)
Number of Columns 5 3
Widest Column of Text 340 px (caption)
150 px (story)		 600 px
Ads 3 to 4 1
Ad Space 180×90 (2)
80×30 (1)
340×80 partial (1)		 740×100
Ad Space Total 62000 sq px (10%) 74000 sq px (12 %)


What we can conclude is that the home page of the NY Times is able to convey more news and use more pictures. The NY Times places more emphasis on their content by having the navigation along the left hand side, rather than at the top of the page.

The most important difference is in the layout of the columns. By using many narrow columns the NY Times is able to present more headlines and has more story content as well.

The North County Times does have a dynamic element that permits the display of more than one picture on the homepage. The NY Times picture element is static and related to the story content. The placement of the dynamic picture navigation control results in picture captions not being immediately visible and therefore the pictures lack context.

When discussing ad placement, the NY Times is able to display 4 ads. Two of those ads appear to be linked and display the same content. One of their ads is mostly off the display. The NC Times shows a slightly larger single ad, but the space allocated for ads is actually significantly larger and not in use in the screen shot.

While both of these sites change frequently, this review attempts to address the major site elements to evaluate the recent NC Times redesign. I am not impressed with the redesign and hope that the NC Times will continue to attempt to improve the site with a mind towards increased usability.

[1] Five pictures dynamically rotate through one space.
[2] Available after personalization.
[3] ~325 px (53%) after personalization

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NC Times Redesign

August 5th, 2009

The North County Times or NC Times launched a redesign of their site, and while I am no design expert I have criticized the functionality of their site in the past. It’s important then to revisit past criticisms and to see what the upgraded site has to offer.

My biggest complaint with the NC Times and the other newspapers is the walled garden approach they have taken with their content. Not only do they lock down the distribution of the content they create but the content that users on the site create in response. They do this to preserve ad revenue, but in the end they are competing against services who have figured out how to monetize content through syndication.

Results of my initial 5 minute evaluation are not good. While the site loads much faster and has an updated more modern look to it, the usability is poor because of the large type reducing the amount of content available without clicking or scrolling. This is exacerbated by the large amount of space reserved for ads and the masthead. While the large drop down auto-dealership banner advertisement is gone, and the site no longer crashes my mobile browser, the site still does not support alternative browsing via mobile devices in any real sense. On my phone I need to scroll halfway down the page before I get to the headline for the story.

The site now has breadcrumbs that improve navigation and the new menu bar navigation is cleaner than the old style, however key pages that were very useful are as far as I can tell completely gone. One I will specifically miss is the regional columnists page that provided at a glance the subject and date of each columnists most recent post.

RSS feeds appear to be the same clunky system that existed before. One really odd behavior is that the RSS icon on each section home page links to an RSS explanation page rather than being an actual RSS link. Of course they also didn’t bother to put RSS links in their page headers.

One of the most important features of the modern newspaper website is the ability to handle trackbacks and pingbacks. It will be interesting to see if this review is linked back to the comments for the announcement of the web site redesign. One really foolish thing that was done was to remove the comments from the story page itself into an alternate tab. Separating the comments from the story is one symptom of the newspaper arrogance that their content is somehow better than user generated comment.

One really weird aspect of the site that I find interesting occurs on the homepage. At the bottom of the main column appear objects that look like widgets providing a glimpse into each of the main sections.

This content appears on the home page and looks like a widget.

This content appears on the home page and looks like a widget.

Unfortunately this content is not dynamic, clicking on any of the hyperlinks result not in the expected dynamic preview behavior of a widget, but an actual navigation to the story or section clicked.

While there are some positive things about the redesign, overall the NC Times took some steps backwards in usability and did not fix some fundamental technology problems. I believe this change will be yet another milestone marking the decline of the North County’s most important media asset.

Update:

As expected pingbacks and trackbacks do not register as comments. However we were informed that a mobile site exists:

ACE said on: August 5, 2009, 5:58 pm
We do have a mobile-optimized site at http://www.nctimes.com/mobile. It is not a default for mobile devices out of respect for iPhone users, who would then be limited to it. If you have mobile problems, let us know at website@nctimes.com. — Ace

While I agree that auto-detection can be problematic, I guess that the NC Times creators have never seen pages for m.twitter.com and other professional web sites. If you look at the bottom of http://m.twitter.com you will find a line that says, “View Twitter in: ” with a button that toggles between ‘Standard’ and ‘Mobile’.  While the lack of RSS feeds pointing to the mobile site is problematic, the nonstandard use of a subdirectory versus a subdomain is inane, the most wrong headed part of their mobile site is a complete lack of advertising.

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Common Misconceptions about the State Park Access Pass program

June 16th, 2009

While I wait for the California State Park Foundation to publish an updated FAQ, I would like to tackle some misconceptions about the proposed State Park Access Pass.

First we visit the Mono Lake Committee staff blog who tell us, “If the new funding source does not survive that process, then 80% of the parks close.” This is false, both the elimination of the state park system from the general fund and the SPAP must be voted on. Tell your legislator to continue funding the state parks from the general fund, not through yet another vehicle fee. How many legislators will vote to defund the parks without a replacement funding source?

Many people on Facebook think the issue here is whether all Californians should support the state park system. In support of the SPAP Debra Brittain says, “The parks are there for future generations, not only for those who choose to use the parks now. It is not unfair to ask everyone in the State to maintain the parks.” Currently the general fund as well as usage fees support the state park system so currently everyone in California does support the park system. That is not the issue.

There are two real differences between supporting the state park system through the general fund and via a vehicle licensing fee. First the vehicle license fee is a new tax that would increase the total state budget. Second the vehicle license fee is a regressive tax, putting a disproportionate tax burden on the poor.

Update:

Modern Hiker incorrectly offers, “And, of course, because it takes a tremendous stride toward democratizing the state park system.” This is the stereotypical view of the current park user. Fearful of losing access to the park and grabbing on to any funding mechanism to support them they fail to look at the proposal critically. Removal of usage fees, and conversion of funding from the general fund to a vehicle licensing fee is not democratization. A regressive tax is, if anything, anti-democratic. The California State Park Foundation has done a wonderful job of selling their agenda of funding before accountability to the park loving masses.
Update:

Pete Thomas of the LA Times Blog Outpost parrots the California State Parks Foundation’s press release with his Good News, Bad News post.  To avoid the term tax hike, he uses terms like surcharge to note that the increased VLF is simply replacing funding from the general fund. He thinks opposition will be from non-park users but who, after reviewing this proposal, would support a $143 million dollar tax increase with no accountability and no long term solution to the problems of how the state parks are managed?

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Posted in Opinion, Travel | Comments

Why I oppose the State Park Access Pass

June 15th, 2009

The State Park Access Pass program creates a new tax. As a State we can not spend our way out of the current financial crisis. If every program threatened with cost reduction seeks a dedicated source of funding we will double the State budget not halve it.

The State Park Access Pass funding source is not logical. It is not any more reasonable to think that the State Parks should benefit from vehicle license fees than emergency services who respond to vehicle accidents or education that relies on vehicles to transport students and staff to schools. Also consider the case of the two car family who has paid $30 in vehicle license fees to access the State Parks and who will have an additional fee to pay when they rent an RV to visit the State Parks.

The State Park Access Pass program removes entry fees as a way of moderating park traffic. Certain high traffic parks have entry fees that can be used to discourage casual visitors and encourage repeat visitors to visit less crowded parks. Removing this tool from the State Park system will cause additional crowding at the most popular parks.

The State Park Access Pass program is a regressive tax. It shifts the burden for the State Parks away from the wealthy, who typically bear the largest burden of the State Budget. It places an additional burden on the poor.

In conclusion, no matter how strongly we support individual State programs, the time has come for us to stop letting special interests of any kind drive the State budget. We need a well thought out budget that allocates a reasonable amount of revenue between the necessary programs and accept the cuts that will inevitably follow.

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Posted in Opinion, Travel | Comments

Augemented Social Networking

June 10th, 2009

In The Dirty Little Secret Of The Twitter Elite Mitch Joel writes, “Just because they’re following you on Twitter, it does not mean that they are paying attention to you. ” His conclusion, in the form of a rhetorical question,

The bigger question is this: how much longer can we continue to use the words “Social Media” if every day, the majority of the power users are doing everything they can to filter out and aggregate their personal preferences – essentially rendering them less social?

Stating a conclusion as a rhetorical question certainly shows a lack of commitment to a position, and that is a good thing. Mitch’s point that social media platforms are being used for marketing is not incorrect, what he fails to remember is that these platforms still have, at their very core, a set of one to one connections.

It is very true that Ashton and Oprah can not possibly have a personal relationship to each and every follower, however it is entirely possible that the Ashton and Oprah brands could. This is accomplished via what I will call Augmented Social Networking, and it is still in its infancy. As corporate marketing progresses from a mass media, print and broadcast mode, through intermediate steps, email and finally into social networking the tools that it uses to manage its customer relationship have similarly grown to adapt to the capabilities of social networks. At the very bottom end are the tools like CoTweet currently available to allow companies to share the responsibilities of managing a single Twitter account. At the top end of that spectrum would be a tool like Toucan that allows the integration of Twitter with a customer relationship management platform like Salesforce.

Whether its intelligent agents working in conjunction with existing systems or office assistants using simple tools, Augmented Social Networking allows companies and individuals to establish many meaningful one-to-one personal relationships in place of the former one-to-many relationships. So, in response to the rhetorical question above, social networks will reject power users who do not establish personal relationships. While, for the time being, it may seem productive to have a one-way conversation over a social network, over time those that follow this paradigm are doomed to be filtered themselves.

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Posted in Internet, Opinion | Comments

Technology Bill of Rights

May 18th, 2009

Paul Venezia of Infoworld has proposed a Bill of Rights for Technology. When naming something a “Bill of Rights” you are attempting to piggy back onto the authority of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Bill of Rights was intended to protect individuals from tyrannical governments. As we take a look at Paul’s six Bills let us see if we can figure out who he is protecting us from.

Article 1. Any individual shall be able to choose anonymity when posting to Internet sites

Similar to ensuring Freedom of Speech, yet it doesn’t guarantee the right to speak and anonymity is not a right in the real world. Paul says, “Let’s be straight — if someone absolutely wants to post anonymously, they will find a way do so, whether allowed or not. Thus, the right to basic anonymity should be maintained. Besides, in the vast majority of cases, an anonymous post will still be traceable to some degree by the site admins, but not by the casual reader.” So we don’t really need this right, right?

Article 2. No network provider may constrain or restrict access to the Internet in any way, shape, or form other than agreed-upon access speeds

OK, so a wireless provider can’t block services like video or VoIP that are in direct competition with paid services. This may be OK for common carriers who operate government granted monopolies, but in a free market you should be able to contract for the services you want and not be forced to pay for services you don’t want. Network neutrality is a smokescreen to restrict the rights of the consumers, especially the less tech savvy ones who have no use for the Internet beyond web browsing and email.

Article 3. No individual shall be held liable for effects of malware or malicious code unknowingly run on a personal computer

OK, so the user, the administrator and the malware writer are all exempt from the damages caused by malware. This makes no sense and leads to the situation we are in today where zombies run rampant and email is almost all spam. Let’s start holding people accountable and see if that doesn’t help the situation. If I own a pool I am expected to take reasonable precautions to ensure someone doesn’t accidentally drown, having a computer connected to the Internet should carry the same responsibility. ISPs should be forced to turn off network connections to infected machines.

Article 4. A company that produces and sells closed source software for use on computers shall be responsible for the security of that product, and a user has a right to seek damages in the event of a failure to secure their product

Ignoring for a moment that we just exempted individuals in Article 3, I do not significantly disagree with this statement. We have exempted software providers from ensuring a reasonable level of quality in favor of innovation. Beta products are now released to the public and remain in beta for years. However, the effects of this article could be chilling. The cost of writing software for health and safety related devices is orders of magnitude higher than that of typical software products. Certainly this cost increase would end the availability of computers in the home. The loop hole non-closed source software is clearly anti-business and thus this article clearly denies people the ability to make money by writing software. This article alone if enacted could bring to an end the age of the computer.

Article 5. Any software or hardware used to conduct or support laws and public policy shall be open-source

This article arises from flaws in devices used to produce evidence against them in criminal matters, whether they are brethalyzers or speed cameras. Certainly these devices can be flawed, but is a radar gun inherently less accurate than the estimate made by a patrolman or vice versa? Voting fraud went on before voting machines were invented and why we can hope to minimize it we can’t realistically expect that it is entirely preventable. Calling for open-source is overkill, merely allowing an audit by a certified independent auditor should be sufficient.

Article 6. Any media content legally purchased by an individual shall be available for private use on any device, at any time

Fair use currently gives you the right to make a copy. This does not force the media provider to make it easy for you to make that copy. If someone sells you a book he is not obligated to provide you a digital copy. If he sells you a DRM protected song so that he can make it available to you via the Internet but protect the copyright holders right to unauthorized distribution he is not obligated to give you an unlocked version. If you do not like these terms then you do not have to buy the product. Legal elimination of content protection would kill the innovation of delivery models.

Paul’s bills do not apparently protect us from some overarching government authority. Rather they seem to be designed to strip away the rights of companies to do business as they please. They seem to favor the elite technophiles at the cost of the ordinary user. Tyranny of the geeks is not something that we should welcome, even if the geeks are well meaning they don’t have the moral authority to make decisions for the rest of society.

Posted in Internet, Opinion | Comments

When fancy graphics lie…

May 14th, 2009

Take a look at the heat map of proposed Chrysler dealer closures posted by the Wall Street Journal. The graphic is titled “Hardest Hit States”. What States will be hit hardest by this closure? If you included California, Texas or Florida in you analysis then you would probably be mistaken. But it is likely that you missed at least 3 of the top 5, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.

The problem with the WSJ map is that it doesn’t account for either population or availability of other dealers nearby. Something that Chrysler surely considered when creating the list. Simply by factoring in population, a method itself not perfect, we see that the areas losing the most will be rural areas and the rust belt. Areas that will have the least ability to cover the job losses with other industries. A real analysis of the problem should address not only population, but driving time to the nearest alternative dealership and the economic impact to the local community and it’s ability to absorb the losses.

As the Chrysler reorganization moves forward the question to be asked is: “Is Chrysler and, through its approval, the US abandoning a whole segment of the country”? The specific question I am asking now is, “Was the poor use of statistics by the Wall Street Journal intentional to shape opinion or was it merely laziness”?

Below are the top 15 States ranked according to dealerships lost per 1 million people (2008 population numbers):

State Population Dealers Lost Lost/M
ND 641481 8 12.47
WY 532668 5 9.39
WV 1814468 17 9.37
SD 804194 7 8.70
IA 3002555 22 7.33
KS 2802134 16 5.71
MO 5911605 27 4.57
NH 1315809 6 4.56
NE 1783432 8 4.49
PA 12448279 53 4.26
MT 967440 4 4.13
OH 11485910 47 4.09
MI 10003422 40 4.00
LA 4410796 17 3.85
UT 2736424 10 3.65

My thoughts are with those who have learned that their jobs are at risk today. They join many of my friends and some family members who are struggling to find and hold onto employment. We need to pull together and make the best of this situation, our best days are always ahead.

I also have data tables suitable for use with Google Map gadgets if you need them.

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The State of Rich Internet Application Platforms

May 14th, 2009

The following was an internal response to an email about: Times abandons WPF & Silverlight and how it affects Total Training’s plans for delivering video content over the web. It should be noted that Total Training partners with both Adobe and Microsoft and produces training products for the products being discussed. We do not currently offer any Oracle, Java or JavaFX training. I welcome your comments. – Steve

—

The Times is abandoning the WPF & Silverlight because they have to maintain two different code bases, one native application and one browser based. As AIR applications aren’t really native apps in any sense of the concept (security, performance, functionality) they aren’t really getting a better product out of the mix except in the one mentioned area, font rendering.

The Times because it is primarily a text rendering application is less relevant than two other examples, Netflix and MLB. Both Netflix and MLB provide applications that are primarily video and require continuous connection to the Internet.

MLB abandoned Silverlight because it failed to deliver technically. The primary reason that they moved to Flash is because Flash can be installed on the typical workplace desktop without administrative privilege, not so for Silverlight. MLB also got a black eye with their launch that was plagued with problems. However that launch occurred prior to the Olympics. Both MLB and the Olympics really helped MS wring the bugs out of high performance video streaming.

Netflix’s experience has been nearly the opposite of MLB’s. Netflix is, of course, forced into Silverlight because of the DRM capability. Yet they laid off 50 people in their customer support department specifically crediting Silverlight for a reduction in support calls. Netflix had some recent quality issues (now fixed) that the community blamed on Silverlight. Netflix never admitted what was causing those problems.

As I look at the scoreboard now I see the following:

- The promise of WPF/Silverlight combined applications was not realized. Nor has Silverlight brought the power of .NET to web applications.
- The lacks of a Mac native WPF application capability or a supported wrapper for Silverlight leave MS at a disadvantage to Adobe AIR.
- Silverlight’s installation issues are temporary until MS forces Silverlight in through Windows Update, but until then Flash has an advantage for workplace desktop penetration.
- Silverlight is still the only viable DRM platform, this means it should be the de-facto first choice for any video subscription service. MLB is already having piracy issues even with live games, but since these games are broadcast in the clear the need to protect their Internet streams is not critical.
- Flash has a maturity edge over Silverlight on the application components and has closed the gap in terms of media presentation.
- Microsoft will signal full support of Silverlight as it begins to cut all of its applications and services over to it to compete head to head against Google Apps. Once this is done Silverlight will gain significant credibility for use inside the enterprise and will then gain acceptance for outside facing applications, especially at MS primary development shops.

I should also mention that it appears that the Oracle purchase of Sun is likely to kill JavaFX. Even if Oracle doesn’t actually kill it the months of uncertainty during the acquisition will likely prevent any adoption of the platform.

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Posted in Broadband Video, Internet, Opinion | Comments

Interactive Video

May 7th, 2009

What is interactive video? Veeple has a demo marketing video that shows how you can use clickable regions to allow the user to interact with your video. While I think they have a solid product and strategy I think their term clickable video is more appropriate than interactive video.

A truly interactive video would be one that itself changed based on your choices. There have been rich internet applications that have done this previously, specifically I recall a FIOS or U-Verse campaign that linked out to video from different props on a Flash stage. The fault here is that it is not a continuous story and the actors on the Flash stage typically repeat a very lame loop waiting for the next selection.

True interactive video, in my opinion, would be more like the adventure books I read as a child that had a choice at the bottom of each page. The story would continue in a different direction based upon the choice made. This would be an incredibly useful tool for a product selection wizard for example, the video would allow a comprehensive explanation of feature choices and the customer selections would tailor the video presentation to the consumer’s needs. I am excited to think about the possibilities for how that interaction could be implemented. The videos could easily respond to eye tracking or other mechanisms to transparently make decisions.

In the end I wonder if interactive video isn’t an evolutionary dead end. The basic problem with video is that it needs to be recorded and once it has been recorded it is difficult to change. As we move towards realistic digital actors on virtual digital stages, true interactive video will be the ugly stepchild to the video-like rich application.

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Posted in Broadband Video, Internet, Opinion | Comments

Google Voice at work?

May 7th, 2009

Now that I have started to get a handle on using Google Voice for my personal calls I am trying to identify how I can use it for work as well. Integration with our existing PBX has some interesting challenges. I am hoping that other people can provide some insight into how they are using GV to manage both business and non-business voice communications.

Some things I would like to accomplish.

  • Elimination of my work voicemail.
  • Ability to filter out cold sales calls and provide a distinct message.
  • Notification of critical after hours calls
  • One button and scheduled GV forwarding from my office

Some current issues with what is available.

  • GV has no scheduling options for work/non-work hours.
  • If I can’t make my work PBX pass through caller ID then there is no way to differentiate business callers.

So, in Google’s (Grand Central’s) vision you hand out your GV number to everyone and you don’t deal with your internal PBX at all. It’s possible I could reroute my current extension into GV permanently and create a new unlisted extension for myself, but then I have issues with in office calling and transferred calls not to mention losing some of the PBX scheduling functionality.

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