Comments on: Marco Arment on Pagination Inflation

By: StarTribune.com vs. Minnesota Public Radio’s Website | The Deets

StarTribune.com vs. Minnesota Public Radio’s Website | The Deets — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:02:59 +0000

[...] Pagination. It takes four pages to read something on the Strib that would take one page to read on either of [...]

By: Ed Kohler

Ed Kohler — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:08:49 +0000

@Ry4an, agreed on the pain of refreshing. At least humans see the ads in pagination situations unlike auto-refresh where someone could die with their computer on and run up tons and tons of ad impressions before their body is discovered.

By: Ry4an

Ry4an — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:05:00 +0000

The real page view inflation trick is their automatic reloading of the front-page. If you leave your browser open it keeps reloading periodically, which sound like a convenience feature until you realize it’s why the strib keeps winning national awards for “longest average reader time spent on site for a regional news paper”: when you go to lunch with the Strib in a window you show up in the statistics as someone who was actively engaged for an hour.

From the source:
var reloadTimer = setTimeout(function(){window.location.reload(false);},600000);

By: The Other Mike

The Other Mike — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:43:18 +0000

I never liked the old style print scheme of breaking up articles into fractions, and I certainly have learned to hate it online where the old excuse of print limitations no longer exist. Ultimately this explains why old businesses tend to lose in the innovation game, because they refuse to change their old school methods EVEN when they change platforms…thus the old saying about automating the cow path.

Anyhow, I left the Strib behind years ago and don’t miss it. What came to mind only after I left was how very little unique content exists in their entire weekly paper. I would say next to nothing, but would that demean their breathless coverage of … insert example of current mindless of the day here.

By: Mark Gisleson

Mark Gisleson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:29:29 +0000

And given how abusive Facebook is to its users, the fact that it’s not as abusive as the Strib really says something.