What Makes A Great Newspaper Site? — Aug 21st 2007

By Dakota Smith

(A shot of NYTimes.com, judged the best newspaper site on the web by the Bivings Group)

Last week, Netscape received an interesting story submission: A list of the 10 best newspaper web sites, as judged by Bivings Group, a Washington, D.C.-based web site developer.

Studying the "design, aesthetics and general usability" of the sites from the top 100 newspapers in circulation, the Bivings Group ranked NYTimes.com first ("pleasing to the eye" and "easy to navigate"), WashingtonPost.com second ("love its database applications"), and USAToday.com third (the site was praised for its social networking features). Notably, the group singled out sites' use of web 2.0 technology; for example, the DenverPost.com (# 5) allows users to launch personal blogs, while the Houston Chronicle (#4) has a "great RSS system," wrote the researchers.

Looking at similarities between the sites on the list, the majority of sites were early adopters of web technology, according to John Morton, a Silver Springs, Maryland-based newspaper analyst. Additionally, the newspapers--and their sites--are run by companies with deep pockets.

"These are all major newspapers in terms of their size and financial capability," said Morton, noting that USA Today, for instance, is owned by Gannett Company, while the Houston Chronicle is owned by Hearst Corporation. One major company not on the list: the Tribune Company, which owns numerous papers including the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. Sites LATimes.com and Chicagotribune.com were deemed weak by the group, according to Todd Zeigler, senior vice-president at the Bivings Group, and one of three staffers who worked on the list. "For major market papers, we were surprised by the sites," he said.

But personal preference must be considered when making up a list like this, said Howard Finberg, director of Interactive Learning at the Poynter Institute, a journalism school in St. Petersburg, Florida. (He's a fan of LATimes.com, he noted.)

Despite the fact that online advertising revenues make up just a fraction of total newspaper advertising revenues, (5-6 percent, according to Morton), newspaper companies are under tremendous pressure to expand their online offerings. But there's no magic formula on how to create the perfect site, said Finberg.

"It's not just a question of money and resources," he said. "It's how the resources are spent, the right climate in the organization, and the right leadership. And it's also knowing who your audience is, and why they are coming to the site."

Comparing Bivings' list to the most trafficked newspaper sites, only four of the top sites appeared on a recent Nielsen//Net Ratings' study of the 30 most-visited newspaper sites. The New York Times, USA Today, and Washington Post are in the top three, while the Houston Chronicle comes in at number seven. (Click here for the full list.)

Since the Bivings Group published their top 10, Zeigler said he's been tracking comments about the list on the blogosphere. "Everyone seems to hate their hometown paper," he said. But even among the smaller newspaper sites, there are standouts, he said. Both Bakersfield.com, run by the Bakersfield Californian, and LJWorld.com, the Lawrence, KS-based web site for the Lawrence Journal-World & News, impressed the group, according to Zeigler.

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