Canberra Times website - why do they bother?

Worth noting that F2 is pulling in big, big bucks for fairfax these days.

similarly the classified business (the real money in papers) is going to end up totally online over time.

I’m sure I had this explained to me once about why their website is totally useless.

I think it was that everyone else was getting on this new-fangled internet business, so Rural Press decided they’d better do something too, but rather hedged their bets by putting stuff up but making it not very user friendly (ever tried searching their archives?) so that people wouldn’t stop buying the real papers.

K

Yeah. CT is by far the crappiest news website around. So I guess it accurately reflects the quality of the paper itself.

I’ve had a gut full of the weekend Canberra Times. Full of bloody garbage. The Sunday edition is the biggest waste of paper.

I only get Monday to Friday when they offer it to me for an extra couple of bucks a week.

Agree. CT site is atrocious. the HYS area is a riot though, several weirdos run riot on there. I must confess, I have posted the odd troll there to see what would happen. Alas, that was the only appealing thing about the CT site.

Actually, the CT itself is a bitza. Most stories are rehashes from wires, they practice freely the art of press release articles. I only get the weekend editions for whats on and classifieds. The winre reviewer is pretty good as well. Overall, the CT is not a must buy for me. I get the Age most days of the week. And I still look at the age website even though i buy the tree edition.

One thing I have always noticed is that sport is always up to date and gets a mention on up there with the national issues…. which is maybe why I find smh so appealing… not that I dislike sport – i just don’t see it as a priority all the time

Rural Press continued making a motzer by downplaying the Internet while other media such as Fairfax were pissing hundreds of millions against the wall on failed dot com ventures such as F2.

Rural Press is a very conservative company.

It will wake up to better use of the net when it reckons there’s enough money to be made.

Worst thing ever was being overseas when the fires were on a few years back, logging onto CT to see where was affected and getting not one article about it. I had to source The Age to find any real coverage. I’ve never gone back since.

But if you look at all of yourguide.com.au (which is rural press same as CT) they all are a bit dodgy.

Perhaps it is because they know that alot of the ACT gets the on-line news content from sources who actually have an idea about website design?