Northcliffe slowly improving their website series

Following my Thisislincolnshire.co.uk critique, Martin Stabe reports on his Press Gazette blog that “journalists at Northcliffe Media’s regional titles have begun geocoding stories as the group prepares to introduce geographical targeting on the “next generation” websites that it has continued rolling out this week.”

So 10 out of the 55 Thisis (please change the name, they are way too long) series websites will get geocoding (some sort of geotagging, but only in a postal code area). Apparently, by September 79 of Northcliffe’s sites will have this capability and feature the new design.

Still, not very impressed with the new design. It is still cluttered and too text based, not very easy on the eye. The same advertising model is used and I can’t even find the RSS feeds for thisishullandeastriding.co.uk. (That’s a major step back from putting them lower on the page, to none)

At least now they went up to speed with the year 2000 in terms of design, but they have another 8 years to catch up with.

Meanwhile, Dave Lee is launching on Friday the news website of the Whithireia Journalism School, which promises to bring on the table the latest online journalism trends.