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Alan Stainer

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Spot the copy competition

December 9, 2015 by Alan Stainer

Spot the copy competition

Can you find it?

This is a screenshot from a local paper’s website. I won’t name it, but wanted to use it as an example of abysmal design.

And advertisers wonder why people use ad blockers?

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Filed Under: Web Design Tagged With: Alan Stainer

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Comments

  1. Andreas Bartels says

    December 9, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Is there any actual content visible in the screenshot? The phrase “It’s all a bit testing.”, perhaps?

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  2. Alan Stainer says

    December 9, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    Yep. That’s the last line of the copy Andreas Bartels 

    There is more copy on the actual page, but the ads swamp the ending.

    The rest of the page isn’t much better either.

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  3. Andreas Bartels says

    December 9, 2015 at 4:41 pm

    Yeah, it’s really bad. The local newspaper’s website here looked like this for a while. About a year ago, they added a paywall, but the few remaining “free” articles (mostly news agency bits available everywhere else, too) still have tons of ads – including pop-ups, animated overlays, videos playing on hover – all the crazy stuff that no one wants to see.

    My ad blocker is internal – if a page presents itself as shitty as that, I won’t visit it again. I don’t see how intrusive ads like this really work for anyone involved, in the long run.

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  4. Alan Stainer says

    December 9, 2015 at 4:51 pm

    I think the newspaper industry is floundering. It’s failing in print and is failing to tackle its online presence too. It’s one of those situations where we need a disruptive business to do really well and all the others will follow in their footsteps.

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  5. RMF Marketing says

    December 9, 2015 at 6:07 pm

    there are a few examples of mags/newspapers who are doing it right… The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times… I’m talking about design, but I’m sure good design keeps eyeballs on your site longer.

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