The Examiner; Ireland's 3rd broadsheet with web presence to match
Denis Filed Under: Labels: Interactivity, online editions
The Irish Examiner is Ireland's third daily broadsheet newspaper. It status as a national paper is often questioned. The one platform that really levels all the papers is, or should be, the internet. The best way to attract visitors to the website is through having well written content which is neatly displayed and easily navigable.
A cursory look at the site will show that there is a heavy showing for advertisements. The ads are not carefully placed either, they take prominence over everything else on the site.
One thing that the site does well, which may be a hangover from the print edition, is that the main story is the first thing that grabs your attention when the page loads.
After that the site lets itself down again and again. The headlines section for news only comes after two story teasers. The same format is followed for the world and sports news sections.
The worst thing about the website is that there is no real sense of cohesion to its layout.
The article pages have no integration of web 2.0. There is a large picture at the top of the article which is followed by a large amount of text. The only thing that breaks the text up is a very crude Google ads advert. The only hyperlink actually asscoiated with the article is email and share buttons located at the top of the page.
All that aside, the worst thing about the site is that the content is only updated when the print edition goes to bed. The same stories are in the headlines for nearly 24 hours before they're changed.
