The man has a point

This man, I mean. His argument is that newspapers still have a long way to go on the Web. I don’t think anyone in newspapers would disagree with that.

We worry about leaking our enterprise stories too early, we don’t always follow stories with consistent updates, and, let’s face it, there are a lot of newspaper sites that are hard, if not impossible to navigate.

And the points he makes are valid. Changing the link structure is a great way to make sure no one sees a story again, and making readers login is a great way to make sure no one sees a story in the first place. Online analytics have come far enough that you don’t need to have a list of registered users, you can find out how many people are actually reading and go from there.

But the best point he has is one we should have gotten a long time ago: we need to stick with what we know best. A Web site isn’t like a newspaper, and the idea of a monolithic information provider is dead. So why do so many papers keep bombarding readers with wire copy they can get elsewhere. That space could be better used to showcase more of our local expertise, and to get good stories in front of more eyes.

I’m back

And I’ll be posting regularly again. The vacation was wonderful. You can see lots of pictures and read our impressions here.