times – Terence Eden’s Blog

Does The Times Care About Mobile Users?

@edent — Fri, 09 Aug 2013 11:30:16 +0000

Some days, I think it must be fantastic to work for an organisation which just doesn't care any more. The sort of place which thinks, "sod it, it's not like we need more readers or more money." That is, I imagine, what it's like to work for The Times.

For the last 3 years, The Times' articles have been (mostly) behind a paywall. People have been predicting its demise for just as long, but it shows no signs of going away - no matter how few people pay for content.

The overall thrust of The Times' argument is that they would rather have a low number of paying customers than a large number of freeloaders.

"What have we really lost? A long tail of passing trade, many from overseas, many popping in for only one article, referred by Google or a social media link, not even aware they are on a Times or a Sun website, wholly anonymous.
This reach doesn’t generate any meaningful revenue, and the pursuit of it undermines the piece of the business that does make money. If your purpose contemplates still being here in five to 10 years’ time, then the choice seems clear: it is better to sacrifice reach and preserve sustainable profitability."
News UK CEO Mike Darcey

Personally, I would like a large number of paying customers. But I'm old fashioned like that.

This leads me to the question - why does The Times make it so hard for me to give it money?

Here's a typical user journey.

"Oh! Hey! This looks like a pretty neat story that one of my Twitter friends has shared. Let's check it out!"

"Hmmm, I've been presented with a crappy desktop experience - despite being on a mobile. That doesn't happen with the Telegraph, FT, Guardian, Mirror, or Independent. They're smart enough to give me content formatted to my device."

"There's no link to view this story on mobile. I'll search for the mobile front page. I bet that's a good experience!"

"Still, running a image resizing proxy is pretty hard work. I'm glad I saw these error messages!"

"Ok, let's click on the story. I bet I can read the teaser content which has been available on the main site since 2012."

"No. Nothing. Oh well. Their reputation for hard hitting journalism means I certainly wish to subscribe."

"Wow! They really don't want my money. You know what, I'll try to get to their subscribe page on my phone anyway."

"Well, after searching the page for the smallest link imaginable, I've finally found something which looks like a mobile formatted page!"

"Finally! Take my money!"

What a load of rubbish! How is this a good way to take money from the billions of mobile users on the planet?

Here's how it should work....

User clicks a link from Twitter.
She sees a mobile friendly page, with teaser content, and a link to buy.
Buy link takes her to a mobile payment gateway.
User subscribes.
That's it.

Using a service like ImpulsePay The Times could create a link which charged their £2 access fee directly to the user's phone bill (if they were in the UK). It's true that there's a lack of global mobile payment options - but considering their payment page is already mobile friendly, they could just link directly to that.

It's all very confusing. They have a reasonable mobile payment system - they don't link to it. They can take advantage of direct mobile billing to the majority of users - they don't. They could provide a beautiful and compelling mobile experience to detected devices - they can't be bothered.

What's going on? Don't The Times like money?

Mobile Newspapers

@edent — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:45:08 +0000

When I was a student, I had a brilliant idea. Why not have a stand at every train station where you could sync your Palm Pilot with the latest news?

Insert a pound in the slot, press the button for The Times, aim your handheld's IrDA at the blinking light and ZAP! All the latest news for you to read on your train journey.

It's just as well that my idea never got out of the paper prototyping stage. While BlueTooth has supplanted Infrared in the majority of modern phones, it is network provided data which is now king.

The Daily Show did a wonderful interview with the New York Times. The interviewer asked the editor...

Can you show me one thing in this paper that happened today?

And, of course, the answer is "no".

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/news.mp4

I remember on that dreadful day in September, barely a few hours had gone by before the first "extra" editions of the Evening Standard had pictures and analysis.

A few hours? That feels like a life-time. Especially when it comes to breaking and developing news. There is a huge lag between a reporter typing away, the presses rolling, and the delivery drivers depositing the paper on the streets.

The Internet totally eliminates that lag. A journalist can clatter words onto a laptop and with a push of a button have them broadcast to the world via their website.

The Web is Too Slow

I simply can't wait until I'm back at my desk. Nor can I be bothered to boot my laptop, find some Wifi, find some power, load FireFox, etc...

Flip open my phone, click news, read. That's what I want. And that's what I can get. For breaking news, the mobile Internet is the only real solution.

What's Available

I present here a quick overview of the most popular British Newspapers' mobile sites. I've also included the New York Times for international flavour and Reuters for the agency view.

List of mobile newspapers - spot the favicon

I don't intend to comment on the politics of the papers, nor their choice of stories - I'm going to concentrate on the first impression only. Later I'll do a full review of their capabilities.

The first thing to spot is the use of the Favicon. Favicons are the little icons which are used to differentiate your site from others. Think of it like a visual bookmark. Bizarrely, half of the UK papers don't use a Favicon. That means that in the bookmarks list they are likely to be overlooked.

A special mention for Reuters' Favicon (highlighted) - It's an indistinct yellow splodge. I've highlighted it because it's hard to see yellow against a grey background.

FT.com - http://m.ft.com/🔗

m.FT.com

Traditionally printed on pink paper, the mobile site seeks to replicate the distinctive hue of its paper counter part. From a branding perspective, this instantly tells the user that they are on familiar ground. It doesn't affect the readability - so why not.

Showing the time next to a story instantly tells the reader how "fresh" the content is. Confusingly, there's no date displayed.

Search is always important to readers; allowing them to get straight to the content they want. Not having any navigation is a hindrance to users quickly finding their way around. While users will scroll to get to navigation - placing it at the top is an easy way to let them choose where to go next.

While advertising is a necessary evil, this advert is hard to read and jars with the rest of the page. The layout of the whole page seems very heavy on the dead-space.

Guardian - http://m.guardian.co.uk/🔗

m.Guardian.co.uk

I've already reviewed the Guardian - but to my mind it still stands out as one of the best examples of mobile news sites. Compact and efficient layout, navigation, teaser images, and the date all contribute to a well designed first impression.

The Independent - http://m.independent.co.uk/🔗

m.independent.co.uk

Dispensing with navigation has allowed The Independent to cram a few more stories above the fold. Although their teaser text hasn't been optimised for the size of the screen leaving some rather jarring dead-space.

The colouring is rather plain, but fits in well with the paper's brand. Colouring the background space given over to the advert is an interesting design choice. It simultaneously draws attention to the advert while keeping it conceptually separate from the rest of the site.

Metro - http://metro.mobi/🔗

metro.mobi

The Metro is technically a newspaper. The mobile site reflects the paper version - cheap, cheerful, primary colours and a blonde on the front page. The total dominance of the image detracts from the rather good navigation choices - split by category. The masthead is perhaps a bit large - but the promise of the image will probably be enough to get 50% of the population to scroll down.

It's interesting to notice that there are no stories or direct links to stories to be seen.

New York Times - http://mobile.nytimes.com/🔗

mobile.nytimes.com

They "Gray Lady" lives up to its reputation with a very plain site which, nevertheless, packs in a lot of information.

Using an anchor link to get to the navigation is a smart choice. It reduces clutter at the top while keeping navigation options available. With intelligent use of space they've also crammed in a search box. The date and time give the viewer the reassurance that the news they are reading is not stale.

Unlike the other sites, the NYT places images on right. While this is distinctive, readers of English are accustomed to a flow of information from left to right. I wonder if this style helps or hinders readability.

The link to a dedicated application is a smart touch and will probably upsell readers. Unfortunatley it comes at the expense of looking like it is part of the headline. A less subtle change of font, colour, or placement would help here.

Reuters - http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/mobile/uk/🔗

uk.mobile.reuters.com

Reuters is not a newspaper. It is austere and feature poor. Deliberately so - it caters to those who want the news without any fuss. That said, they do make poor use of the space available; only the lower third contains any real content. It makes a nice change not to have an advert at the very top of the page - but the heaps of space aren't really necessary.

Shifting the masthead and date on to one line, then removing some extraneous space would provide a better first impression by bringing more news to the forefront.

The Sun - http://thesun.mobi/🔗

thesun.mobi

The Sun is Britain's biggest selling paper. Unlike the others, they totally eschew advertising at the top of their site.

The page is strongly branded and very picture heavy - that's likely to negatively impact download times. Navigation is very clear but it is missing search. They have deliberately taken the paper's style - the ripped edges of the image, for example - and applied it directly to the mobile. That's not always a great idea, but it certainly makes it stand out from the crowd.

Times - http://timesmobile.mobi/🔗

timesmobile.mobi

I've reviewed the Time before. I find the logo unnecessarily large. It's great that they've got the date and time on there - but giving them their own line feels like an inefficient use of space.

Essentially, over half the screen is wasted here.

Mirror - http://m.mirror.co.uk/🔗

m.mirror.co.uk

The Mirror's mobile site feels dominated by its advert - yet, impressively, they still manage to keep 3 stories above the fold.

There's no navigation or search. Indeed, it's as simple as you can be without the barren space typified by Reuters.

While offering a good amount of news - this really gives the impression of being Lidl's site, with a bit of news thrown in. Adverts should be carefully designed not to swamp the pages on which they live.

Telegraph - http://m.telegraph.co.uk/🔗

m.telegraph.co.uk

Alphabetically last, The Telegraph is a rather mixed bunch. The only images are an advert and its logo. The navigation and use of date are well integrated. Despite this, they can only fit two stories above the fold.

There are no images to entice the user - although the text rich screen does convey a depth of purpose that the others may be missing.

Conclusion

It's important to remember that users will scroll. The idea of putting important assets "above the fold" is, at best, a distraction. But there's no denying that the first impression really does count.

It's heartening to know that the UK's mobile (mainstream) news market is so vibrant and healthy. While they differ in functionality and content - these sites show that providing news on the mobile is no longer a niche activity.

Mobile news sites come in a wide range of shapes and sizes - demonstrating that mobile needn't be static and simplified.

These sites - despite their problems - are evidence that mobile news, for many people, is the news.

Times Cheltnam Twitter Competition

@edent — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:00:07 +0000

Update! Those wonderful, delightful, considerate, and fragrant smelling people at The Times have corrected their mistake. All is well with the world. This blog post is staying merely for #NaBloPoMo.

~~Rupert Murdoch and John Humphrys ⁠owe me £20! In protest, I'm going to quit listening to the Today programme until they pay up and apologise.~~

The Times has been running a literary competition:

Well, I like books, I like twitter, so I thought I'd enter with this little effort.

Pretty good, huh? Ten minutes later, Nathan Smale re-posted (not retweeted) my story.

To his credit, my story was a full 140 characters and he quickly followed it up with

No big deal, right? The Times published my story as one of their "Best Entries So Far".

They Got It Right The First Time

I was pretty happy and quietly confident that the £140 was mine. Well, my tweet won a runner-up prize! But The Times credited it to @nsmale - despite earlier crediting it to me!

Miscredited

Nathan Smale is, of course, blameless in all this. To his good credit he hasn't tried to snaffle my prize and has alerted The Times to their egregious mistake.

I guess it goes to show that the new Retweet Functionality is much needed.

I've tweeted and called The Times and I'll post any follow-up here.

Mobile News Sites - The Times

@edent — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:04:34 +0000

I read most of my news through my mobile - if your website isn't mobile friendly, I won't be bothered to read it. I've greatly enjoyed the BBC's Mobile News service and Guardian Mobile - but now there's a new player - The Times has a mobile site. This is a quick review of what I like and what I dislike about The Times' mobile venture.

Discovery

The first I knew of the site was this advert nestled away on their website.

No mention of the URL on the advert

The URL is the rather tautological http://timesmobile.mobi/

Good: Using a .mobi to indicate it is a mobile friendly site Bad: Not autodetecting my phone and redirecting me to the .mobi site.

Page Layout

A nice clean front page.

The Times - Mobile Front Page

The logos are, to my mind, too large - they dominate the page whereas they should be subtle enough to be useful. The adverts predominantly for The Times' own services.

Big Images

Stories are well laid out, although the images could be shrunk for a mobile audience.

Stories are split over several pages - helps with download speeds and also boosts page impressions.

Next and Previous page links

Unbelievably, there's no way to share stories. There's no send to a friend link and, worst still, the URLs are too long to send in an SMS. I also suspect they contain session keys.

What a long URL

Compare this to The Guardian...

At the bottom of each Guardian story

Text to a friend

...or the New York Times...

The New York Times has a range of sharing option

Send to a friend

How do you expect to build readership if your current readers can't tell their friends about your great content?

Customisation

This is one area where The Times outshines the competition. At the bottom of the front page is the invitation to customise the page.

Customise

This is a boon for people like me with no interest in sports. Here are my customisations...

All the different sections

...And the resultant section on the front page.

My Front Page

Search

The Times' search functionality is curious. The input field is too narrow and the buttons are poorly placed.

Wherefore art thou, Shakespeare (yes, I know wherefore means why)

It also provides mobile friendly web searches - although the order seems rather spurious.

Random mobile results

Feedback

The site asks for feedback - curiously, they don't link to their mobile Twitter page. Again, their text fields are far too narrow.

Why does The Times hate hyperlinks?

RSS

They seem to offer mobile friendly RSS feeds, a great way for keeping people up to date with the site.

Mobile friendly RSS

Yet, for some reason, the link isn't clickable.

Conclusion

This has some awesome features - I love the customisable homepage, especially the keyword search.

There are some minor UI niggles which will no doubt be ironed out over time.

The lack of sharing is a severe mistake - without an easy way to send stories to people, you can't hope to organically drive traffic.

I look forward to more British news sites going mobile.

Post Script

The Times wish it to be known that...

we were mobile-friendly long before Guardian

Do Newspapers Get The Web?

@edent — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:00:17 +0000

Recently I was featured in two prominent online newspapers. The Times published a short story I wrote for The Times Cheltenham Twitter Competition.

Extract from The Times

The Guardian wrote about my experiences with energy monitors.

Extract from The Guardian

What struck me was the very different ways that these "Old Media" approached the "New Media" of the web.

I'll state my biases up front. I'm a tofu knitting, bleeding heart liberal who - if I were one of the dwindling number of newspaper buyers - would read The Guardian or the Independent. I also owe Kevin Anderson a beer. The Times has given me some free T-Shirts and its sister paper, The Sun, covered my wedding.

Let's see how the two compare...

Hyperlinks

The web relies on links. Hyperlinks are what separate the web from classical text.

The Guardian is extremely generous with linking. Every name, every article, every unfamilar idea is meticulously cross-referenced. The Times has none. No links within the text. Even when the author writes out aitch-tee-tee-pee - still no link. They could link my name, link to my original twitter post, link to their own content - but they choose not to. This is obviously a newspaper article - designed to be read on paper. Perhaps my secretary is meant to type in the hyperlinks, print out the resultant pages and then fax them to me.

This is how The Times should have displayed the tweets

Guardian 1 : Times 0

Tagging

A folksonomy is an excellent way to categorise content. It's a simple and effective way to help your readers find your content. The Guardian offers several ways to see similar stories. It make effective use of tags as well as sidebar content. The Times has a few links at the side - but doesn't provide any contextual information.

Guardian 2: Times 0

Mobile

Like several billion other people around the world, I access the web via my mobile. What happens when I visit these sites using my phone's default browser?

The Guardian redirects me to the correct story on m.guardian and provides a pleasant mobile experience. There are a few problems with the speed at which articles are put on the mobile site - but it works. The hyperlinks and images are sorely lacking - but at least it is a clear and easy to use experience.

Mobile Friendly - but feature poor

The Times doesn't have a mobile version. Or rather, it may do but didn't redirect me there. As a result I get a fairly messy page and a large bill for downloading heaps of data.

Mobile Unfriendly

Guardian 3 : Times 0

Paying

The Times, it would appear, wants to charge me for access to its websites. Based on the above, I find it hard to get excited about the idea of paying for such poorly executed delivery. The Guardian will let me freely remix its content via its APIs. It encourages free creation.

Guardian 4 : Times 0

Commenting

Both sites let me comment. This is a great way to get feedback from your readers. It also allows you to see where you may have erred in your original story.

The Times allows you to comment on any story - The Guardian seems to restrict comments to blog posts.

Both sites require registration - something I've always found a bid needless - but The Times has a single form whereas The Guardian's form seems to span several pages. Make registration easy enough to encourage commentators - not put them off.

Guardian 4 : Times 1

Conclusion

The Guardian is the clear leader, but both sites have something to learn from the other. Both are a long way from being perfect. Journalists and editors need to understand all of the benefits of the web and make sure that they are making the best use of them.

You wouldn't use colour printing to display black and white photographs in your printed paper - nor would you make links unclickable on the web.

Once they make these changes to their mindsets - both will be in a strong position to take full advantage of this "new" media.