The New Philly.com

When I took a temporary gig as VP-Editorial at Philly.com a few months ago, I wrote that I probably wouldn't be able to say much in this blog about what we were doing while we rethought the site. Well, now I can: We launched the new version of Philly.com this weekend, and I think we've broken some important new ground in what it means to be a newspaper Web site.

To start with, the new Philly.com doesn't look like most other news Web sites. It doesn't have an endless collection of text links on the home page. Instead, it's got a clean, elegant design (by the good folks at the Philadelphia office of Avenue A/Razorfish) that highlights important content and is designed to move readers deeper into the site to find more. It makes very strong use of photos and video, in addition to text. It uses photo-illustrations of Philadelphia landmarks at the top of most pages so that there's no question that you're on a site about Philadelphia. In short, the new Philly.com has a strong personality and identity—unlike most newspaper sites, which generally lack local identity.

But those are just the cosmetics. Philly.com also tries to rethink what it is to be a newspaper site. Yes, the excellent content of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News is front and center. But the site is not just about news. It's also full of guidance to living and visiting in the Philadelphia region, including events calendar searches on every page, to help readers find out what's going on around town besides what's in that day's news.

More importantly, Philly.com finally breaks free of being a one-way lecture to the audience. It's bristling with calls to action for reader participation, in comments, discussions, user-submitted reviews, photo and video uploading and other user-generated content. Highlights of that reader content are displayed on just about every page, so that visitors are invited to talk amongst themselves about what's on the site and what's going on around them. I don't think any news site as gone this far in encouraging reader involvement. Underlying this is an industrial-strength comment-management system that minimizes the amount of work the staff has to do to police all of this user interaction.

On top of that we've got dozens of reporter and columnist blogs, a growing number of video elements and shows, ubiquitous horizontal navigation to keep readers moving around the site, some cool tools from Aggregate Knowledge to help readers see what others like them are interested in, and much more.

And this is really only the beginning. As with any redesign and relaunch there were a few things that didn't make the deadline, most notably some social features, which will be phased in over the next few months. Philly.com will continue to grow and improve, but it's already light years ahead of where it was before this redesign. (For a glimpse at what it used to look like, see the screen-grab at left. The change is really dramatic.)

There are a number of people who deserve great credit for the new site, starting with Philadelphia Media Holdings CEO Brian Tierney and Philly.com President Eric Grilly, who have strong ambitions for what the site can be and how it has to move from simply being a "newspaper site;" the aforementioned Avenue A/Razorfish, which delivered a great design (further polished by Jill Hoover and Jeff Aiken); Jennifer Musser-Metz, who did an incredible job project-managing the design and launch process; and the talented and hard-working production and tech teams at Philly.com, who brought it all together and will keep the site evolving and growing over the next weeks and months.

As you can tell, I'm very proud of what's been accomplished with the new Philly.com, and I'll be excited to see it get even better in the future. We're defining what makes a great newspaper site. Up next: Philly.com does hyperlocal. Watch this space.

Comments

[Justin Knechtel]

Mark, great work on the site. It looks fantastic and hopefully other papers can follow the lead here.

What caught me most was the "Apple appeal" - it works right, it looks great, and it's engaging. Hats off to your designers, I found myself clicking on links just to see what the next page will look like. Come to find out, there were some great stories too!

Another news site I enjoy is theLas Vegas Sun's. The layout changes daily, and the culture of the city is embedded throughout the pages keeping everything local.

Justin

[Tom Cheredar]

That site is beautiful.

[conkyfilms]

Three words: tremendous epic fail! Really, God-awfully hideous. Highly amateurish; readability of articles diminished quite a bit; bizarre color scheme; evidently lax QA because of all the bugs everywhere; really, really dumb and unnecessary dumping of the old logo and replacement with something that is not only unremarkable but ugly; white on light blue footer links?; the hand-scrawled section headers AAAUGH ... just look at the comments on the site - practically no one likes this! The only upside to this is maybe it will put the last nail in the coffin of these impotent newspaper dinosaurs in this town and make way for some fresh, competent local news.

[Rocky]

Mark,

Can you get them to get rid of the stupid pagination of stories? It's totally user unfriendly and hurts SEO/searchability.

It screams "blatant page view grab" and probably isn't all that effective in that at any rate. (Would love to see data on the drop off at each page... bet it's huge.)

[Ken Bilderback]

I want so badly to like the new site, but my first impression is not good.

It looks and feels like just another newspaper site, and not a particularly interactive one at that.

I gave up trying to follow stories and find all the blogs and other stuff you're so excited about.

I don't hate it by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure doesn't get me excited about reading it, either. Sorry.

[Excaliber]

What an amusingly self-congratulatory load of b.s. The site is just plain awful, lacking half the content the old version offered. Yes, no sense in detailing or carping because judging by this blog, philly.com folks are mighty darn full of themselves. Oh, and the tip of the hat to his bosses was so cute!
At least pass some of that champagne while I hunt for a newsy site.

[amy]

I really wish you would highlight those dozens of blogs you brag about. They are very good and represent unique content on the site. But they are impossible to find, and even when you find the blog list, you can't tell when most of them have been updated. Why not promote them on the home page? Or have a prominent BLOG link on the page. Something enticing. They represent unique value to the site and are constantly being updated. But most readers and users have no idea.

[A. Reader]

Where's the news? It looks like you've trivialized philly.com. Do you get extra pay for kissing your bosses' asses in public?

[Cherie]

Huh. Well, not so much with the forward thinking. There is some good: good sizing on photos (though the video still images are not uniformly cropped well); a lack of redundancy for the most part (except the promotions module... please, re-do it so it says "Philadelphia" only once); an appearance that the news is fresh.

But ground-breaking? No. The user-generated content, social elements and local connections are critical things the Philly.com team pushed back on vehemently in 2001 (when it really would have been ground-breaking). I checked the staff list to see how many of the 2001 team was still around... quite a lot.

The color scheme looks like something my mother would ask for (blue and chocolate brown? How 2007 Crate and Barrel of Razorfish.) And the background gives the appearance of a dusty screen.

An improvement over the previous iteration, to be sure. But don't praise it for what it clearly isn't.

[Brian]

With all of the resources that I would think the Inky, DN and Tierney and Co could come up with, that this was your best effort is just sad. Students at most community colleges could have done as well. You have dumbed down a decent, functional site.

[Palmer]

Eeeewww! I have to echo what conkyfilms said, "God-awfully hideous. Highly amateurish; readability of articles diminished quite a bit; bizarre color scheme; evidently lax QA because of all the bugs everywhere; really, really dumb and unnecessary dumping of the old logo and replacement with something that is not only unremarkable but ugly; white on light blue footer links?; the hand-scrawled section headers AAAUGH".

Absolutely horrible. What was once one of my favorite sites that I often referenced when commenting on what a media site should be has now become a perfect example/study in what a media site SHOULD NOT BE.

Has anyone on the development team heard of cross-browser compatibility? Does not carry over well at all in either safari or firefox. Major font problems and a number of code problems.

Finally, the forced audio on the job clips? Kill it! You have an at-work audience. If they want to hear the audio give them the option. I will be writing a Firefox plug-in to kill the forced play.

[The Editorialiste.]

I've been a harsh critic of the Philly.com site in the past, and I think people are missing the point.

Yes, this isn't the most beautiful site on the Web. But it represents change, and change is so, so welcome. And it continues to be.

Always,
The Editorialiste.

"Philly.com Overhauled...For The Better? (hint: yes)"
The Editorialiste

http://editorialiste.blogspot.com/2008/05/phillycom-overhauledfor-better-hint-yes.html

[conkyfilms]

Editorialiste, I'm glad you value change over quality. I'm sure then you won't mind if I replace your Starbucks with Folger's Crystals, your iPod with a 1986 Sony Walkman or the brakes in your car with a pair of Nerf footballs duct-taped together.

[Medical Malpractice]

Looks great, and I bet even better change is on the horizon. Keep up the good work!