New Formats for Freep and DetNews websites

[Hypestyles]

Interesting. So are these easier to navigate compared to before, or harder? I guess we'll see. It seems like photos are a lot more prominent now, compared to before.

[stinkytofu]

Thus far I am not a fan. I liked before how you had easy, obvious access to a host of news stories. Too much of a hodgepodge of large photos, Twitter feeds, ads now...I just want news stories.

[aoife]

It looks like an entertainment web page. If they wanted to do something positive, they should focus on improving the quality of the material they are publishing. Some of those articles are impossible to read.

[stinkytofu]

It looks like an entertainment web page. If they wanted to do something positive, they should focus on improving the quality of the material they are publishing. Some of those articles are impossible to read.

Yeah, I feel you there. They are drifting dangerously towards "infotainment".

Then again, maybe I'll get used to this after awhile.

[animatedmartian]

USA Today's website uses this format and I don't necessarily like it. However, at the very least the web pages load noticeably faster so there's at least some positive to the change.

[Smirnoff]

The new format sucks, difficult to quickly navigate,.....no wonder the papers continue to fail, again & again & again.....why not give the reader a format option, geeeeeeeezzzzzzz?

Next-

[Homer]

The new format sucks. Maybe I'm getting old and find change difficult but liked the easy access to stories all in one place and not having to search for the features I like. Seems they configured it for phones and tablet touchscreens. Yes Smirnoff a format option would be great.

[Dan Wesson]

All these so called news "repackager's" have joined the cult of personality.

Who's to blame? News now in America is a mixture of populous mind control through the alliance of special interest groups, government and media with a strong dose of mindless low budget entertainment. Give 'em what they want.

[brizee]

Terrible.

A bunch of form over function nonsense. It's clearly made for vertical tablets and gives the finger to anyone with a widescreen monitor.

Busy, cluttered, harder to use trash. It's caca, it's shit. It sucks and blows whatever extremity you find most distasteful.

And I don't like it.

[Bobl]

Just give me news and features, with an index. Information, not fluff.
I'm with brizee.

[mtm49269]

YUCK! Too busy; takes too long to load; info. not well organized. Its only slightly better than Channel 7's redesign a few months back. I haven't visited that site since then because its ridiculously slow to load and not worth it.

Part of my job is designing/creating web sites for the U.S. gov. We don't use a lot of cutsey graphics/sound/animation because we have to be 508 [[handicapped) accessible. Besides, our main objective is to provide the public with information - not to advertise or entertain.

Reminds me of what we referred to as the "ebay effect". Spousal-unit and I used to be big into ebay in the early days but, whenever I would go to a site that was slow to load because of all of the extra junk - sound, animations, etc., I'd just click away from it.

[Honky Tonk]

Besides, our main objective is to provide the public with information - not to advertise or entertain.

Oh, I don't know. I find the U.S Government VERY entertaining from time to time.

[Willi]

Rumor is that Warren Buffet is town this week looking to buy and all chummy with Dan Gilbert.
Berkshire Hathaway also owns BH Media, which owns 69 newspapers and other titles.
Perhaps the old Detroit News becomes another notch in his commercial empire belt.

[jackie5275]

Interestingly, the both pretty much look alike now which I was dismayed to see when I saw the Detroit News website this morning. At least one was different for a couple of days. I don't like either one. But as others have said there's really no news content in them anyway.

[Ray1936]

Don't much matter to me. Seems to load faster, despite an opposing view above. As long as I can grasp what is going on back in the old home town it's okay with me.

[Scottathew]

The new Freep format looks very flat, especially on the left side. It just looks amateurish.

[detroittrader]

It's horrible and it was before. The New York Times is [[and always was) the best newspaper in print and on the internet. They could save the money for website designers and just copy it.

http://nytimes.com

[douglasm]

I don't think I like it. I DO like the idea of items being presented in "sections" like a traditional newspaper, but I find the home page very confusing......

[One Shot]

I don't like it either.

[Cliffy]

Two thumbs down

[courtney]

The template used is the same for all newspapers owned by Gannett. I wouldn't be surprised if in the next few weeks it becomes a "pay site" [[if you're too stupid to know about cookies) after a few free articles per month, if it follows the other Gannett papers I used to read.

I used to have freep.com in my daily rotation of sites, but haven't been back since the new format.

[loveDetroit]

Actual content aside, but I like it. Maybe it's because I'm using a tablet, but I find it much easier to navigate than the old site. The main thing I go to the Freep for is local news and obits. Obits used to be a PITA to find, now the link is right there.

Embrace change. Move on or become irrelevant. [[not affiliated with Moveon.org)

[detmsp]

If it looks like it was designed for phones and tablets, it probably was. Why wouldn't you design your website specifically for the devices that most internet traffic comes from?

[Honky Tonk]

If it looks like it was designed for phones and tablets, it probably was. Why wouldn't you design your website specifically for the devices that most internet traffic comes from?

[jlnascar]

not a fan at all, change sucks