Slightly OT: The new annarbor.com
So the replacement for the now-departed Ann Arbor News is now up and running: annarbor.com
My initial reactions with regards to sports coverage were positive, considering it's still in its infancy. The Ann Arbor News' site had been getting very stale and sparse throughout 2009, and annarbor.com already has much more content.
Particularly encouraging is this:
http://www.annarbor.com/sports/meandering-through-the-maize-and-blue-a-…
You'll note that it even respectfully links to blogs! HOWEVER, the second "MGoBlog" link about Beano Cook takes the reader not to this trusted site, but to Umgoblog.com. Oops!
Overall, I'm glad to have a new source of Michigan athletics content, and even more glad that they seem to have shed some of the shackles of the MSM. Best of luck, annarbor.com.
My biggest problem with the site right now (I haven't read it much because of this) is the layout. I find it to be a little vacuous and faint. I don't want NYTimes.com, but something with a little more girth to grab your attention would be nice.
It pretty much looks like a glorified Twitter page. Which is not necessarily a bad way to view the news, if you check it a few times per day.
not a great layout and some of the articles he linked seemed a little old. I hope they work out the kinks because I always love a place to get my UM fix.
Yeah, the layout and design are disappointing. Excess whitespace unnecessarily heavy padding all over the place, and a lack of visual heirarchy (e.g. why is the 'login' info higher on the content section and the same font size as the article headings?).
They have a lot of information to present in a small space, but visual density can be achieved without cluttering the design. See any of these:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/11/newspaper-website-design-tre…