You're missing my point. I'm talking about how this reads and looks to Lawrence.com readers. If he was writing this for Lcom readers it would be phrased differently. I can't know for certain who he was writing to, but this reads as if it was written for LJW readers. It was posted on LJW here http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/seen_... and then also posted on Lawrence.com, in what seems like an afterthought, given how it reads and references LJWorld.com. My point was that I think the mixing of content muddled the brands and that is one decision that ultimately led to Lawrence.com's failure.
That this post is about your stepping down from LJW, but is published on Lawrence.com (with no mention of l.com or explanation about why it appears here) succinctly sums up what went wrong w/ l.com.
Anyway, that being said, good luck in your new role!
Thanks for the shout out, Richard. I was wondering if you'd already forgotten me. :) Phil helped me land that job and I owe so much to him for giving me that chance. It was challenging and filled with many frustrations (as most ad sales jobs are), but it was a great experience.
Agreed. Micro-payments should have been considered before killing Deadwood, which was one of the best ads for the site.
Plenty of things could have been done differently from a strategy perspective, but in my very humble opinion, you need to start with some low-hanging fruit, like fixing the archive. When the site migrated to this new design, the formatting of blogs was destroyed. Years of hard work has been striped of line breaks, links and photos. Surely this has impacted the search rank of these articles, which has business implications, but it also shows a disregard for the past, a disrespect for readers and a let down to the bloggers, who were crucial in fostering the community that used to exist here.
I know fixing that html is a huge project and the programmers have better things to do, but it's worth fixing. Whether by hiring people from South Asia on elance for $5/hr, recruiting a high school or KU programming class or organizing a corp of volunteer readers, do it. It's flabbergasting that it has been allowed to remain this way for so long. To me, as a former blogger and reader, it gives the impression that no one cares. If you don't care about the time and energy people put into those blogs - for free - why should we care to return as readers?
Make content easier to share. For so long I thought there were no social tools, but then noticed them at the bottom of posts. I had just been tuning them out. Try moving them beneath the byline or off to the side, like this (http://mashable.com/2010/06/18/facebo...).
Experiment on commenting systems. As we all know, lcom blogs and stories used to generate dozens of comments of intelligent, funny and passionate discussion and debate. That went away somehow, but it's important to figure out why. Gawker has the right idea with rewarding quality. http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/04/toug... This alone likely wouldn't solve it, but lots of thought should go here. Have you asked readers why they comment less? Maybe start there. Hell, I'd even be tempted to go back to '04-'07 and email the regulars and ask for their feedback. They might not be the regulars anymore, but I suspect they'd have something valuable to say.
This final point will likely be ignored, but I think Lawrence.com needs separation from the LJWorld brand. Nothing against LJW, it is a good paper and site, but they are (or were) two very different beasts, with two very different audiences and the more they combine, the less-appealing lcom becomes to what was once the core audience. In my opinion, the less lcom looks, acts and sounds like the LJWorld, the better. Repositioning at this point is hard, since the curtain has been pulled back, but I think this was a key mistake in the history of lcom.
That's more than I came here to say, so I'll quit. Curious to see how it shakes out.
Agree with Joel, "...Phil Cauthon was the heart and soul of the site."
This is a huge mistake, imho, but unfortunately one of several during the recent past. Can't stop thinking of what I would have done differently, had I somehow been in charge. Hard to say what would have worked, but losing Phil is the last thing that should have happened.
For Lawrence's sake, I hope whoever remains can make this work, but I'm not optimistic based on recent moves. Hope I'm proved wrong.
I really enjoy this series. It reminds me of well-done art cars, which I really like looking at. Also, elements of these remind me of David O'dell (at least I think that's his name). I first saw his work at an art event called Trash to Treasure in San Francisco. He had an incredible piece based on the Iraq war/occupation you can see here:
more close-up pics of my own here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33248084... It was comprised of dollhouse furniture, army men and other figurines, old cell phones, toy tanks and trucks, etc. There were also some strange additions. For instance, notice all of the jayhawks. Those were an interesting surprise for me, which I never figured out. I took it as symbolic of a bunch of troops/jayhawks from Kansas finding themselves feeling out of place in a foreign land. Inside the book cases were headlines from newspapers relating to the war.
Darker than your work, but another great example of art generated by a carefully collected sum of smaller parts.
alm77, you shouldn't worry about liking hipster fashion. much of it is just things that were or are fashionable on their own. It's the snotty attitude that often accompanies those fashions that people tend to dislike.
I enjoyed this piece on "blipsters" or black hipsters. http://theroot.com/views/rise-black-h... I think it does a good job of explaining the motives behind outsider fashion.
Oh Captain, My Captain
Nothing fun about this situation, but it has been nice to see so many familiar names again.
June 22, 2010 at 3:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Announcing a change at LJWorld.com
Megan,
You're missing my point. I'm talking about how this reads and looks to Lawrence.com readers. If he was writing this for Lcom readers it would be phrased differently. I can't know for certain who he was writing to, but this reads as if it was written for LJW readers. It was posted on LJW here http://www2.ljworld.com/weblogs/seen_... and then also posted on Lawrence.com, in what seems like an afterthought, given how it reads and references LJWorld.com. My point was that I think the mixing of content muddled the brands and that is one decision that ultimately led to Lawrence.com's failure.
June 22, 2010 at 2:21 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Announcing a change at LJWorld.com
That this post is about your stepping down from LJW, but is published on Lawrence.com (with no mention of l.com or explanation about why it appears here) succinctly sums up what went wrong w/ l.com.
Anyway, that being said, good luck in your new role!
June 22, 2010 at 1:54 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Dear WORLD CO,
Landscape too hard? L.com knows how to soften it. With plants!
http://www.lawrence.com/news/2010/jun...
June 22, 2010 at 1:49 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Editors' note: Unfortunate changes in lawrence.com staffing
Thanks for the shout out, Richard. I was wondering if you'd already forgotten me. :) Phil helped me land that job and I owe so much to him for giving me that chance. It was challenging and filled with many frustrations (as most ad sales jobs are), but it was a great experience.
June 20, 2010 at 3:23 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Editors' note: Unfortunate changes in lawrence.com staffing
Agreed. Micro-payments should have been considered before killing Deadwood, which was one of the best ads for the site.
Plenty of things could have been done differently from a strategy perspective, but in my very humble opinion, you need to start with some low-hanging fruit, like fixing the archive. When the site migrated to this new design, the formatting of blogs was destroyed. Years of hard work has been striped of line breaks, links and photos. Surely this has impacted the search rank of these articles, which has business implications, but it also shows a disregard for the past, a disrespect for readers and a let down to the bloggers, who were crucial in fostering the community that used to exist here.
I know fixing that html is a huge project and the programmers have better things to do, but it's worth fixing. Whether by hiring people from South Asia on elance for $5/hr, recruiting a high school or KU programming class or organizing a corp of volunteer readers, do it. It's flabbergasting that it has been allowed to remain this way for so long. To me, as a former blogger and reader, it gives the impression that no one cares. If you don't care about the time and energy people put into those blogs - for free - why should we care to return as readers?
Make content easier to share. For so long I thought there were no social tools, but then noticed them at the bottom of posts. I had just been tuning them out. Try moving them beneath the byline or off to the side, like this (http://mashable.com/2010/06/18/facebo...).
Experiment on commenting systems. As we all know, lcom blogs and stories used to generate dozens of comments of intelligent, funny and passionate discussion and debate. That went away somehow, but it's important to figure out why. Gawker has the right idea with rewarding quality. http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/04/toug... This alone likely wouldn't solve it, but lots of thought should go here. Have you asked readers why they comment less? Maybe start there. Hell, I'd even be tempted to go back to '04-'07 and email the regulars and ask for their feedback. They might not be the regulars anymore, but I suspect they'd have something valuable to say.
This final point will likely be ignored, but I think Lawrence.com needs separation from the LJWorld brand. Nothing against LJW, it is a good paper and site, but they are (or were) two very different beasts, with two very different audiences and the more they combine, the less-appealing lcom becomes to what was once the core audience. In my opinion, the less lcom looks, acts and sounds like the LJWorld, the better. Repositioning at this point is hard, since the curtain has been pulled back, but I think this was a key mistake in the history of lcom.
That's more than I came here to say, so I'll quit. Curious to see how it shakes out.
June 18, 2010 at 1:01 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Editors' note: Unfortunate changes in lawrence.com staffing
Agree with Joel, "...Phil Cauthon was the heart and soul of the site."
This is a huge mistake, imho, but unfortunately one of several during the recent past. Can't stop thinking of what I would have done differently, had I somehow been in charge. Hard to say what would have worked, but losing Phil is the last thing that should have happened.
For Lawrence's sake, I hope whoever remains can make this work, but I'm not optimistic based on recent moves. Hope I'm proved wrong.
June 18, 2010 at 9:50 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
The old stone at Stony Point
this could be on This American Life. Great story!
February 25, 2010 at 5:40 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
God Don't Make No Junk! An interview with artist Kendra Marable
Kendra,
I really enjoy this series. It reminds me of well-done art cars, which I really like looking at. Also, elements of these remind me of David O'dell (at least I think that's his name). I first saw his work at an art event called Trash to Treasure in San Francisco. He had an incredible piece based on the Iraq war/occupation you can see here:
http://lincart.com/artists/album27/46...
more close-up pics of my own here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33248084... It was comprised of dollhouse furniture, army men and other figurines, old cell phones, toy tanks and trucks, etc. There were also some strange additions. For instance, notice all of the jayhawks. Those were an interesting surprise for me, which I never figured out. I took it as symbolic of a bunch of troops/jayhawks from Kansas finding themselves feeling out of place in a foreign land. Inside the book cases were headlines from newspapers relating to the war.
Darker than your work, but another great example of art generated by a carefully collected sum of smaller parts.
December 16, 2009 at 5:03 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Daily Dose
alm77,
you shouldn't worry about liking hipster fashion. much of it is just things that were or are fashionable on their own. It's the snotty attitude that often accompanies those fashions that people tend to dislike.
I enjoyed this piece on "blipsters" or black hipsters. http://theroot.com/views/rise-black-h... I think it does a good job of explaining the motives behind outsider fashion.
May 27, 2009 at 3:35 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )