Sporting News Today thread (what do you think?)

[steveu]

OK, finally got on and looked it over.

It's not groundbreaking by any means, but it's a decent read.

I agree with what others have said... the true test will come when the crew does feature stories and enterprise work and doesn't just rehash notes and gamers.

The nice thing? No space restrictions. Today's edition is 34 pages, counting the house ads. The editor has said it will be no less than 24 pages every day. For people who are reading 6 and 8-page sports sections in major cities, this is a relief (although it is meant to be a national paper).

I'd have moved the baseball up towards the front (but I'm a baseball fan, so I'm biased)... the football training camp burning questions were ones we'd mostly known about, but it looks like there will be notes every day or every other day once things get started.

Good to see offseason coverage of sports as well.

Overall, not groundbreaking but still a decent read.

 

[mustangj17]

It has a USA Today feel. I sorta like it.

 

[StormSurge]

I like it, but it just makes me miss The National even more.

 

[zebracoy]

I'd say it's a B to start. I can't imagine that they'll keep up with so much content through the rest of the year and every single day, but I was impressed with what I did see.

Then again, I skimmed absolutely every page. I don't think I spent more than six minutes on it. We'll see how high or low that number gets each day - or if I even open it.

 

[lantaur]

Didn't read it, but wondering from those who did: Is there anything in there that I couldn't have already read last night somewhere else on the 'net?

Agree that one day is not the make or break for this thing. Let's see where it is at in a few months. If more ads (not house ads) start creeping in there, then something must be going at least quasi-right.

 

[shotglass]

No tech issues here. Looks fairly well-edited and attractive.

Here's my problem: 10:20 a.m. in the inbox.

That's not far from being the equivalent of a PM newspaper. And, considering the relatively small amount of material that breaks post-midnight, I don't know if that can't be dramatically improved. I would certainly hope so.

I'm no expert on 9-to-5 lifestyle, but it seems to me a lot of people are already well into their day by the time this showed up, and don't have the free time to sit down with 34 pages.

Again, I liked the content. I thought of The National too, although it certainly doesn't have The National's big-name cache.

 

[ondeadline]

I finally was able to read more than one page and it looks pretty good. I wonder how it's going to make money, however, since there is only one ad that's not a house ad.

 

[Beach_Bum]

Hate to say this but I think it's too traditional.

Also, they needed a cover story today with the launch that would have had all of America talking. I didn't see it.

But I am rooting for them to succeed. Some good people on that staff.

 

[VictoryGallop]

I get that there's no ink, delivery charges, building to lease, etc. But there are still people to pay, no? I assume the staff isn't working for free. So somewhere they've got to come up with the money to pay people. Any ideas?

 

[shotglass]

I've never been able to get a good answer to that, either, in any of these undertakings. Just how does the business model work to make it a money-maker? It's fine that the overhead is lower than with a newspaper, but there ARE expenses.

 

[captzulu]

I like the look of it, and as someone said earlier, if they do more enterprise stuff, this has potential.

Here's a post by the newsletter's art director:
http://www.visualeditors.com/apple/2008/07/sporting-news-today-to-debut-wednesday/

He mentions that the design was done in part to make the document home printer-friendly, which I can totally see and agree with.

The thing I don't get is: If you're going to deliver something electronically, why deliver it in basically its print form? If I was holding a hard copy of this, I would enjoy leafing through it. But when I'm looking at it on screen, I found it a pain to have to keep clicking to zoom in and out and scroll up and down and sideways to read a multi-column story. Seems like if you were going to do a digital version of your product, you should present it in a much more monitor-friendly format. Yes, you can print it out, but who's going to print out 34 pages on their home printer every day? It seems like this thing is meant to be consumed on-screen, yet its format strikes me as being unfriendly in that regard.

 

[longgone]

A nice job for Day One, I thought. Navigation worked well from this end. Content can be better--and will have to be. But a good start.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I'd like to know how you get business types to pull the trigger on something that has virtually no advertising support and no paid subscribers. I would think that for the debut edition they would have GIVEN AWAY ad space just to make the thing APPEAR healthy to gullible potential advertisers that would see (unpaid) Cadillac, Jack Daniels, Polo ads and think, "Hey! The big kids like it, I'd better advertise, too." Instead it gives the appearance of a product that only one company could be duped into spending money on. I see zero reason for optimism.

 

[shotglass]

The thing I don't get is: If you're going to deliver something electronically, why deliver it in basically its print form? If I was holding a hard copy of this, I would enjoy leafing through it. But when I'm looking at it on screen, I found it a pain to have to keep clicking to zoom in and out and scroll up and down and sideways to read a multi-column story. Seems like if you were going to do a digital version of your product, you should present it in a much more monitor-friendly format. Yes, you can print it out, but who's going to print out 34 pages on their home printer every day? It seems like this thing is meant to be consumed on-screen, yet its format strikes me as being unfriendly in that regard.

You may be right, and maybe I'm just too accustomed to PC consumption these days. I just didn't think it was any big deal to click in and out to see stuff.

Gotta love the "Visual Editors" bunch. Someday, there's going to be some real criticism on that board, and I'm going to just faint dead away. ;)

I'd like to know how you get business types to pull the trigger on something that has virtually no advertising support and no paid subscribers. I would think that for the debut edition they would have GIVEN AWAY ad space just to make the thing APPEAR healthy to gullible potential advertisers that would see (unpaid) Cadillac, Jack Daniels, Polo ads and think, "Hey! The big kids like it, I'd better advertise, too." Instead it gives the appearance of a product that only one company could be duped into spending money on. I see zero reason for optimism.

That's a damn good thought, and I say this in all seriousness -- they need some veterans like you who think of such things. Because they obviously didn't here.

 

[captzulu]

Gotta love the "Visual Editors" bunch. Someday, there's going to be some real criticism on that board, and I'm going to just faint dead away. ;)

Yeah. I try to strike a balance by reading that board and then coming here :-) There used to be some pretty good design-related discussions in the first couple years of that board, but a lot of that has disappeared.

 

[captzulu]

I'd like to know how you get business types to pull the trigger on something that has virtually no advertising support and no paid subscribers. I would think that for the debut edition they would have GIVEN AWAY ad space just to make the thing APPEAR healthy to gullible potential advertisers that would see (unpaid) Cadillac, Jack Daniels, Polo ads and think, "Hey! The big kids like it, I'd better advertise, too." Instead it gives the appearance of a product that only one company could be duped into spending money on. I see zero reason for optimism.

I was just reading another piece about the launch and it had a graf about the ads:

At launch, Sporting News Today will not carry any advertising until the company builds up a significant subscriber base, said Baker (it launches with roughly 30,000 subscribers). But eventually, the product will feature video ads, standard IAB units, and even "half page" newspaper type ads.

The whole story:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i1da5db18eb0203bbf1aaf77f5787abed

 

[sportsed]

The thing I don't get is: If you're going to deliver something electronically, why deliver it in basically its print form? If I was holding a hard copy of this, I would enjoy leafing through it. But when I'm looking at it on screen, I found it a pain to have to keep clicking to zoom in and out and scroll up and down and sideways to read a multi-column story. Seems like if you were going to do a digital version of your product, you should present it in a much more monitor-friendly format. Yes, you can print it out, but who's going to print out 34 pages on their home printer every day? It seems like this thing is meant to be consumed on-screen, yet its format strikes me as being unfriendly in that regard.

Exactly my first reaction as well. There's no doubt that the product will get better over time. But here's the Achilles heel: It's a print product, even if it's online.

Scroll your mouse over any of the photos or charts and ... nothing. There is absolutely no interactivity, save for the clicking required to turn the page and the shoot-throughs when a story jumps. Nothing that engages the "reader." Nothing that makes the reader a "user," as a reader is called in Internet parlance.

How passive.

There's a reason why no one else is doing this at any of the big sites.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I'd like to know how you get business types to pull the trigger on something that has virtually no advertising support and no paid subscribers. I would think that for the debut edition they would have GIVEN AWAY ad space just to make the thing APPEAR healthy to gullible potential advertisers that would see (unpaid) Cadillac, Jack Daniels, Polo ads and think, "Hey! The big kids like it, I'd better advertise, too." Instead it gives the appearance of a product that only one company could be duped into spending money on. I see zero reason for optimism.

I was just reading another piece about the launch and it had a graf about the ads:

At launch, Sporting News Today will not carry any advertising until the company builds up a significant subscriber base, said Baker (it launches with roughly 30,000 subscribers). But eventually, the product will feature video ads, standard IAB units, and even "half page" newspaper type ads.

The whole story:
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3i1da5db18eb0203bbf1aaf77f5787abed

That strategy makes zero sense to me. Besides, there's an ad from the Speed Channel.

 

[henryhenry]

how the heck can you keep up with sports if you don't read sporting news?

 

[Clerk Typist]

Click on 'pages' and you get the whole layout and can jump to any particular page. Cool, except that it reminds me of being at the office.