Times Union Irrelevancy

[funwithteeth]

So they've gotten rid of the icons to show which are the paid-content articles, huh? Do they think frustrating visitors is the way to encourage people to sign up?

[CityLife]

I don't even bother with the TU anymore. Daily Record and JBJ have a lot more relevant local stories. How bout the one yesterday about Artis Gilmore as the city's "Sports Ambassador"?

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540904

[fsquid]

I've only been here 4 years, but I don't think I've bought a paper after the first month.  It was nothing but a collection of AP wire stories on a Sunday.  I've opted to go for the WSJ now.

[icarus]

The better news articles are AP or wire stories.

I think more people depend on the local network television news for in depth reporting than the TU.

[edjax]

^^ unfortunately if I did,not have access to the Internet I would rely on the paper over the local tv news.  They have become a total joke.

[edjax]

If those reporters on TV47/30 hold up and wave one more report/document that they have supposedly pored over I going to go through the screen. 

[DDC]

I have two questions concerning the people who sells the TU on the intersection medians and highway off ramps. Are these operations (selling papers on the street) commonplace in other cities? What's the percentage of the money (from the paper sellers) is going to the seller and the TU? I know that can't be a payroll with all of those sellers. Sorry if I sound clueless (which I am) with that last question.

I know a gentlemen ( or used to, haven't seen him in 2-3 years) who organizes a large number, if not most of the people you see at the intersections selling the TU. He purchases literally a trailer load of papers and the sellers meet him at certain locations to pick up their papers. I have no idea what the split is.

[KenFSU]

Just about done with the Times-Union's website.

I'm all for the TU having paid content, but when it's so poorly differentiated from the regular content that every other link that I click redirects me to a subscription sign-up page, forget about it.

The weather now appears to be hidden behind a paywall.

Tremendous.

Been nice knowing you, TU...

[ChriswUfGator]

I don't even bother with the TU anymore. Daily Record and JBJ have a lot more relevant local stories. How bout the one yesterday about Artis Gilmore as the city's "Sports Ambassador"?

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540904

I know I read that one, I'd like to say I was surprised, but it's becoming clear that this administration is doing whatever the hell it wants and throwing friends into cushy positions that have no legitimate purpose. Maddening. At least the council is trying to bust his chops.

[Noone]

^WOW!

[ChriswUfGator]

^WOW!

Yeah I'm definitely not voting for him next election cycle, I wish I'd voted for Hogan.

[FSBA]

"Mayor Brown presents.....Artis Gilmore with a do nothing job"

[Jaxson]

The Times-Union should think about archiving past issues on Google.  I see that there are quite a few newspapers (Including papers from Pittsburgh and St. Petersburg) that have selected issues from their archives available through Google.

[KenFSU]

The Times-Union should think about archiving past issues on Google.  I see that there are quite a few newspapers (Including papers from Pittsburgh and St. Petersburg) that have selected issues from their archives available through Google.

Google Ending Newspaper Archiving Project
By Leslie Horn May 20, 2011 11:35am EST

Cue the "old media" death march. Google has announced that it will stop updating its newspaper archiving project in 2011. The Google News Archive was launched in 2008, and the search giant has since scanned roughly 2,000 newspapers.

"We work closely with newspaper partners on a number of initiatives, and as a part of the Google News Archives digitization program we collaborated to make older newspapers accessible and searchable online," said a Google spokesperson. "These have included publications like the London Advertiser in 1895, L'mi du Lecteur at the turn of the century, and the Milwaukee Sentinel from 1910 to 1995."

Google said the existing archive won't go anywhere, but no new publications will be added.

"Users can continue to search digitized newspapers at news.google.com/archivesearch, but we don't plan to introduce any further featuers or functionality to the Google News Archives and we are no longer accepting new microfilm or digital files for processing," the spokesperson added.

According to the Boston Phoenix, a paper that has been archived through the project, Google sent participants an email on Thursday informing them of its plans. Google told the paper it will shift its focus to "newer projects that help the industry, such as Google One Pass, a platform that enables publishers to sell content and subscriptions directly from their own sites."

The Phoenix noted that Google's process of digitizing newspapers was criticized for being slow, and some of the materials that were submitted never even made their way online. There are some publications that have been scanned but have not yet been indexed in the archive, and it's unclear whether Google will complete this process.

[Jaxson]

Darn.