The new independent

A while ago I did a quick review of the various UK newspaper websites, looking specifically at their Web2.0 credentials - the Independent and the Guardian came out VERY badly in that review.

Well they’ve both now got a new look (as have other sites) and I’ve written more than once about The Guardian’s redesign so I think I should say a few words about the Indies new skin.

Or, a look at whether it really is just a new skin or whether it is a complete redesign and redevelopment.

My initial thoughts are that, although it looks a lot nicer and has the usual web2.0 suspects (or at least some of them) it’s still very much lacking when compared to the giant Guardian or the impressive Times websites.

There’s no discussion or debate on an article, in fact apart from the blogs I couldn’t find debate or discussion at all. And although there are web2.0 elements - these are little more than the usual social bookmarking icons.

But then the BBC News site doesn’t have any more than social bookmarking icons - yet

The stories still seem to be going up AFTER they’ve been in the newspaper but that’s not SO important as I don’t use newspaper sites for news.

PA services (Google News) give you the basic gist of a story and then I use newspaper sites for opinion and analysis - that stuff is more timeless.

A good point is the related links - although, as with most newspapers, they’re REALLY bad at linking out to other places talking about the same story, or providing related links for background.

In fact I think there is a whole other article on the quality of news links. But for the time being lets take a look at the top story on The Indie site and compare it to The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and the BBC.

First the story: ‘Whole life’ term for bus stop stalker
Indie, Guardian, BBC, Times, Telegraph.

Now the number of links.

Independent: Links Out: 0 | Links to Self: 2
Guardian: Links Out: 0 | Links to Self: 4
Times: Links Out: 0 | Links to Self: 3
BBC: Links Out: 1 | Links to Self: 5
Telegraph: Links Out: 0 | Links to Self: 3

They’re all VERY good at linking within their own site and they’re all really useful links - but on this article and in fact on most articles the BBC is the only one that consistently provides related weblinks outside of the BBC.

The internet is founded on weblinks, the ability to connect between two or even more sites - it’s how things are discovered. Newspapers should be linking as much as possible to relevant sites - I’m not talking about other news sites I understand that won’t happen but there is no reason why they shouldn’t be linking to related bodies and organisations.

So my summary of the new look Independent website - a good start but a long way to go if they want to compete in a VERY competitive online media world.

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