This won’t be a pretty post. I was tempted to post this in “tech” but I think I’ll just do a free-form rant.
I try to keep up with my hometown news any way I can- chatting on IM with friends and family do so only so much, so in turn I check the San Antonio Express-News site a few times a week. But, and I hate to say it, their site sucks donkey balls.
I won’t get into the area of newspaper site design as the good folks at The Bivings Report can do a much better job. Although, I am tempted to show a screenshot of their crap site similar to that boingboing (or was it a dailykos) post showing how cnn.com wastes too much space and has very little actual content. I guess I’ll do it later when I have time and don’t want to do
a lazy Steve Petersen-style post. : )
Granted, I shouldn’t talk about site design, I mean, what do I know, I’m not trying to drive revenue up with this do
main, so what do I know about wasting space with pop-ups and column inches for ads . . .
But what really irks me is when I finally dig through the layers of crap and get to a heavily promoted “blog” link on the front page. And then what do I find? I get more pablum from a totally clueless tard- Roy Bragg.
How did he get a job like that? How does someone at a semi-responsible paper get a job comparing Google Maps to a paper map (locally produced I assume). As Chuck pointed out to me on IM, that’s a typical apples-to-oranges comparison.
I want to start getting paid to pretending to know how hip cool technology works, but only stuff that I have no clue about. I won’t write about Google Maps because I have friends who work there and am capable of reading the Google product blogs, know how to look things up, and see the mapping cars driving around outside of my apartment on occasion (not “once” as Roy writes). But then again, maybe because SF is smaller than SA the vans/cars drive around here more. . . .
I think on my next vacation I’ll just tell Avis/Hertz/Enterprise, oh no thanks, I won’t need GPS maps in the car (or on my phone), Roy tells me they take years to make, so I brought a 10 pound map book of Boerne in my carry-on, kthnks.
Okay, maybe I should just calm down and not read his columnsblogs any more. But maybe his editors shouldn’t place his mug on the frontpage either.
Uggh, as I was getting ready to take a screen shot of the paper’s site, the javascript made everything slow so I’m officially giving up and running out of steam on this rant. . . I was going to quote Roy on how online maps take years to update then link to how people have used online maps to show recent changes in their neighborhoods and in more serious ways, document changes in the land/population due to things like in Darfur but as I said. . . I’m running out of rant. .
.
I feel a little bit better now. . . Do you?
QOTD: Is Roy SA’s very own blogging Ric Romero?
