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Archive for September 27th, 2007

A step in the right direction at Ohio.com

Thursday, September 27th, 2007

OK, so I rant about the Beacon Journal Web site a lot.

I’ve discussed some of the practices that annoy me on every site, but especially Ohio.com because I frequent it.

But tonight, I popped over there and noticed something positive I wanted to note.

Beacon Journal wises up

Did you notice it? I did immediately. And I had a hunch from the headline, which was confirmed when I clicked through, this story was actually a follow-up to the subject of my previous rant about the Beacon Journal’s video practices.

In fact, in that rant I specifically made this suggestion about the video: “There was no indication on the story list. Come on, guys, you should advertise this to entice me to click!”

Tonight, they made a note about the video, in the headline, right out on front! I literally smiled and said “yay!” to myself about that. I wouldn’t have even clicked on the link had I not seen that note. Instead, I wanted to watch the video, whatever it was. That’s why pointing out there’s a video is a good idea. People love video.

UNFORTUNATELY, it’s the same video I ranted about before. :( I watched about a minute hoping maybe they had re-cut it or edited it down some.

Not a total win, but this is a definite step in the right direction.

(And just to drive the point home I’m not picking on the beacon and this really is a pet peeve of mine… I actually made the SAME comment about noting video in the headline of stories to my own managing editor last week about our site. It just makes sense.)

Posted in Akron, Commentary, Journalism, Video | No Comments »