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Initial BostonNow thoughts
By adamg on Wed, 04/18/2007 - 9:43am
Mike Mennonno wonders if the paper can overcome the "trifle" factor - the fact that Bostonians are trained to see free papers as something good only for a quick read on the T - and if it can dial down its serialized novelette:
... "One cannot, he thinks, separate ice from the heat that thaws it," eh? That's some heavy shit for a morning commute, dude.
This is an admirable and high-minded idea that should be, if not canned outright, seriously scaled back. The space could easily be put to better use. As, say, a full-page ad for butt-plugs. ...
Rhea Becker, who used to work for BostonNOW publisher Russel Pergamint, is more sanguine:
... [Pergamint]'s creative, fearless and frenetic. When I first met him he was a young whippersnapper publisher. I was a reporter, and then an editor, at his paper, The Tab. Now Russel's a senior statesman (and baby boomer) in the news business. If anyone call pull this off, he can. ...
Sean McCarthy, late of the Herald, compares BostonNow and Metro, page by page:
... Day One has to go to BostonNOW, but anything else would've been bad news, because the upstart had plenty of time to plan for its launch edition. Let's check back in a week or two, or perhaps a month, to see how the two free commuter papers fare when compared. ...
Me? I work in Southborough, where BostonNOW hawker coverage is a bit spotty, so darn if I didn't miss the first issue. The Web site was pretty much devoid of content. Normally, that wouldn't be cause for comment - as a seasoned Web-launch professional, I know how hard that first day can be. But this is the media organization that was going to revolutionize media by embracing the Web, so all those empty pages were kind of surprising.
If you've seen the paper or the site, what do you think?
One cannot, he thinks, separate the fact that I get a weekly (more or less) check from the company that owns both the Globe and part of the Metro, hence, this disclosure.
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Comments
I'm not impressed
As a long-time Metro hater, I have to grudgingly admit the paper has gotten very polished and is a pretty reasonable read. No, its not great journalism and I'd love to see more local coverage, but there is a reason so many people read it.
And a reason I'm seeing so many people walk around the Boston Now hawkers to grab a Metro.
Boston Now's an interesting concept, but right now it just looks like the Metro a few years ago. Its doing all of the little journalism touches that everyone does these days but will look like copy-cat to locals who've only seen it in the Metro. So much of the paper is in black and white, that visually it just cannot compare to the Metro. And right now the content is as cut-and-paste as the Metro ever is. Oh, and the logo is awful. The Paul Revere image only looks good at a very large size. What's more, blue? The color looks great online but it will always look muddy and uninteresting on newsprint. It just doesn't pop. It also doesn't make sense with the red/blue color scheme of the hawkers and newsboxes.
There is some real polish to the website, but what's with the barrier to the home page? Not helping their cause with such an uninteresting splash page that just blocks people from what is actually a good website. And don't get me started on the inconsistant branding with the three different shades of blue that are on the splash page and then the rest of the site.
Its day 2, so I'm not set in stone on my opinions, but I don't have a strong first impression of the paper.
Insider Info
So, I just got talked up by an ad rep with NOW who is definitely positioning the paper in a "whole new kind of newspaper" style. It is an interesting idea, but I definitely don't think they are there out of the gate.
More notably, though, she indicated that the paper is intended to be printed full color. I guess they had some issues with their printer which are being ironed out. Indeed, she even had a copy of today's paper that had more color than the one I picked up from a news box. Also, while I'm very unimpressed with their first two front pages, the mock-ups in her presentation were much stronger visuals. If they go towards something more like those, the paper might stand out more.
A positive review of BostonNow
Lewis Forman liked it.
I think there are some very
I think there are some very thoughtful and insiteful local bloggers that I think would benefit from the exposure Now could give them. But I think it's a thin line, because those bloggers are practiacally just unpaid journalists and op-ed writers. People who it would be nice to see in the Globe and paid.
i'd like to know ...
why they are removing all capital letters from comments.
beats me
i'd like to know where they all came from.
maybe they are saving them
for a really big splashy front-page story?
or maybe the initial commenters are all 19-year-olds who exist on texting and im and don't realize what that shift key is for. not sure why the editors are doing that, either, unless it's a very subtle homage to our own EDWARD ESTLIN CUMMINGS.
oops, that was harsh. back to my personal salt mine ...
no, it's broken
They really do have a bug. I posted several comments there regarding the "crime on the T" article, and each one was lowercased.
it's not a bug, it's a feature
if that's the case, then either they're running fancy-shmancy software that is lower-casing everything (oh, please let it be called archy) or somebody goofed with a style sheet.
Two comments on BostonNOW
A.) On a quick flip through, it wasn't immeadeately clear what items where part of the "citizen journalism" content. I was expecting to see content from local bloggers - maybe it was there, I just thought it'd be more obvious. Otherwise, it seemed like a straight dump of AP wire stories with minimal original content.
B.) The website is very difficult to find with a google search.
No sir, I don't like it.
No sir, I don't like it. (Per Wednesday's edition.) I know they're just getting started, but I found typos in it ("Whose to blame") and a conspicuous lack of local content. I'm also curious to know why the fashion editor believes the only place to grab a post-Sox drink is Eastern Standard. I think it could work, but it needs time to mature and get its legs. But as it stands now, it's not great shakes.
NOW and Metro
In New York, they have three free newspapers, the Metro (since 2003), AM New York (since 2004) and the Spanish free paper, Hoy New York. Metro is owned by Metro International, AM New York is owned by Tribune, and Tribune just sold Hoy to ImpreMedia.
Last year AM teamed up with WiFi and Nokia to provide wireless news and entertainment information in the NYC parks. New Yorkers dont prefer one over the other. Theyre all free.
Most Bostonians feel the same way about our free papers here. The free papers are for entertainment, train delay and suduko purposes. But if we want the 'real' news, we buy a Globe... or get on the internet when we reach work.