Here’s my update on the redesigned, very busy and ads aplenty Houston Chronicle web site. Part 1 is here.

One of the guys at the Chronicle has a blog about the Chronicle. He asked “How Do You Like Us Now?” and based on the comments to that post, I’d have to say not too much. The complaints range from too many ads, to too little content, to too darn slow.

Dwight Silverman posted yesterday and (a) confirmed (in my mind at least) the “community building” objective I mentioned in my prior post by announcing a bunch of tech-related reader forums (reader forums equal more page views which equal more potential ad revenue), (b) said that the problems that were making the site so slow have been resolved (it has seemed faster the last day or so) and (c) said that he thought we’d like the redesigned site once we get used to the change (perhaps I’m looking for my cheese, but I don’t think I’m going to learn to love the new layout).

I know that the whole newspaper revenue model is going up in flames as people move towards free web content in lieu of papers in their yard every morning (we haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in many years). And I applaud the Chronicle for trying to get out in front of this problem while there’s still time. And I even understand the need to sell ads to pay people like Dwight to write the content we want to read. What I don’t like is having the Chronicle’s front page try to push me toward those things (e.g., classifieds, job listings, etc.) that still generate revenue. I have never used that stuff and I never will. I want news and commentary. If I have to work too hard to find it, then I’ll get it someplace else.

I also don’t think all of these reader forums are going to turn the Chronicle web site into the page viewing, ad-clicking cyber-community they’re hoping for. Lots of media (read TV stations, radio stations and newspapers) have tried to build internet communities and most have failed. Here’s why.

There are two kinds of web site readers. One, people who either don’t know how or don’t want to get interactive. They just want to come to a site, get the information they want and leave. All of the reader forums in the world are not going to entice these folks to start debating school revenue or the latest Lost episode on some message board. Two, people who have the desire to be interactive and the knowledge to do it. Those folks generally choose their ultimate internet community (by ultimate I mean their internet “home base”) based on relatively narrow shared interests like hunting, sports, photography (think Flickr) and other shared passions. They may initially be drawn to all these reader forum links the Chronicle is putting out there, but eventually they’ll find a more comfortable niche elsewhere. A community built on a city or a newspaper is too broad. There’s no glue to hold people there.

So where does that leave us? The pages load faster. That’s good. The content is still there somewhere- I just have to click around to find it. I don’t care a whit about the reader forums or the classified ads. Don’t get me started about the polls (another doomed to failure attempt at creating interactivity). At least the lottery numbers seem to have been relagated to a link as opposed to a real estate hogging list.

It’s not horrible. It might even be getting slightly better. But it’s not good either. And it needs to be good.

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Well, after this post I guess I can stop hoping for a link from Dwight Silverman. The Houston Chronicle unveiled its new web site design today. To put it diplomatically, the new front page is not very good. To speak frankly, I really don’t like it. The jury is out on the rest of the redesigned site.

While it was certainly not cutting edge, I liked the old Chronicle page because there was a lot of news on the front page. You could scroll down the front page and see links to most of the stories in all of the sections. Not any more. Not by a long shot.

My rough estimate of the real estate allocation of the new front page:

Menus/Site Info: 20%
Photos: 8% (including a tiny live traffic map- are you kidding me?)
Third Party Ads: 25%
Chronicle Ads: 5%
Polls/Forum List/Lottery: 10% (again, are you kidding me?)
Blog list: 5% (this is a good addition)
Classifieds/Jobs: 12%
News: 15% (that’s right- very little news content)

Lots of ads. Not much news. As bad as it looks in a regular browser, I can’t imagine how bad it will look (and how hard it will be to find the content) on a handheld.

There is some sort of a flash-looking thing that purports to provide “easy access to popular features,” but I find it to be exactly that- a lot of flash. If I want to see little boxes with little snippets of information, I’ll go back to AOL.

There is a News link at the top that takes you to a page with a lot more news content/links on it. This page, if it stays flash and ad-overfill free, may be the one to link to. I wish this News page was the front page.

It is obvious to me that the redesign has 3 purposes: first, to generate more page views (e.g., potential ad revenue) by making you click around to find the content you want. Second, to try to build some sort of community by adding blog listings and reader forums to the front page. Third, to highlight those parts of the site that make money (classifieds, etc.).

The bottom line is that the Chronicle dumped a useful design in favor of one that is less informative, less useful, too busy, and with a bunch of useless stuff on the front page.

Maybe this is a work in progress that will get better. But if the current design is any indication of where they’re headed, I am not hopeful that the end result will be an improvement over the old design.

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