Tuesday, September 15, 2015

A Quick Shout Out to the Jerusalem Post

Michael L.

anvilListen guys, you're taking a good product and wrecking it.

The problem is not the content.  You have plenty of excellent content and many fine journalists and writers.

The problem is that your website is so heavily laden with code and various pop-ups that it is exceedingly difficult to read from a home computer or private lap-top.  What is the point of going to the Jerusalem Post if the screen is going to constantly freeze-up?

I will not access that excellent content because you have made it too damn difficult for me to do so.

I will not read the Jerusalem Post if doing so is little more than an exercise in frustration, which is precisely what it is.

Look at the Times of Israel.  Leaving content aside, the browsing and reading experience is much, much better.  It's not even close.  The TOI is user-friendly while the Jerusalem Post is anything but.

You guys need to figure a way to trim back the excessive code so that people without high-speed corporate internet connections can read your material without it turning into a major hassle.

Let me know when you do.

Thanks.

8 comments:

  1. I use the free products Firefox browser and Adblock Plus (Google to find them) and I don't get these problems. .

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes same here, with AdBlock plus, there is no problem (without it, it is a mess)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ben, welcome to Israel Thrives.

      Please drive safely.

      Delete
  3. Arutz Sheva is the same. I find AdBlock to be a nusisance.

    The JP for some reason freezes my phones and on my laptop very slow to load.

    ReplyDelete
  4. FF 40.0.3 + Adblock Plus + Flashblock do a good job of pruning that. On Android I use a modified Chromo called #Nochrome that utilizes and embedded local adblocker that doesn't rely on proxy redirects. It works pretty well except it disables most commenting streams. But it's smart enough to recognize what parts of a web page called 'sponsored content' are ads.

    Most mobile pages are complete shit by the way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just had Geek Squad refresh my system and I do believe they install Adblock.

      Much better.

      Delete
  5. The JP constantly refreshes the page at inconvenient times throwing me back to the top of the page. I don't see why I should have to get anything to deal with the fact that it sucks. They ought to fix it, so people can easily read their newspaper. Their in the newspaper business, the news is their product. Anyone should be able to use their product hassle free.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well well well
    I stopped reading JP when it changed its format shortly after horowitz left after reading
    it daily for decades. I wrote them( rarely done) but the site only became more muddled. apparenly these people are totally deaf to criticism, as the ''refreshing problem" which predates the " format problem" by many many years. ,so I was amused by the comments about it. Just think of all the anxiety of readers thinking there was something wrong with their computers, when it was the JP website all along.

    The political drifting was within just tolerable margins. A short golden age under Brett Stephens still missed, Horowitz took a left when Stephens opted out to the biger pool (though I confess not knowing the details). Ive got to hand it to Horowitz for starting TOI which lurched left again but is at least more accessible format with much more copy.
    (remember the days when there was only a print edition a 4pgs daily with 6 on friday, )possibly more symptomatic of the pevading mentality of those times).
    Haaretz has been unreadable for years having morphed into something as stilted as the old communist newspapers were and which it closely resembles., arutz sheva is a not so stilted version from right of centre

    Israel Hayom is only a single page daily newsletter . Its politics is really more centre than any of the others (if slightly right of ) It is probably most representative of the majority of Israelis How nice if it were expanded into a regular news site.

    The JP app for the smartphone is more accessible if you must. I only open the JP to read Carolyn, the other columnists there I find on other sites. unfortunately the compulsion to design more complex websites has become trendy but completely destroyed JP. I am still figuring out how to navigate the kinks of the new Commentary website format .
    Mike L , who is kate and what is that about?

    ReplyDelete