SA online news – best of 08

Whereas local online media is still very much dominated by Media24, we have seen some very interesting shifts in the market during 2008. The below is my pic for sites of the year arranged by a few slightly arbitrary categories.

NEWS WEBSITE OF THE YEAR - The Times www.thetimes.co.za

Anyone who has been keeping an eye on the month-on-month traffic stats over the last year would have noticed the massive strides made by The Times. They’ve gone from literally being a negligible presence to being in the local top 10 – and in terms of news, only lagging behind the two big ones, News24 and IOL.

They offer an excellent example of what can be achieved by putting some decent resources behind a website. Contrasted with, say, the flagging fortunes of Iafrica.com, they seem a textbook example of how to grow a site.

Beyond the substantial investment, The Times was also helped by the site’s clean three-column layout and the decision to pitch it a bit higher than News24’s bottom-scraping lowest common denominator.

BEST LAYOUT – Mail and Guardian Online www.mg.co.za

While IOL and News24 are still struggling with cluttered, outdated layouts, both Iafrica and MG had major re-designs this year. Though The Times also looks pretty good in comparison, the winner must be MG.

The sites three-column layout seems cleaner and more orderly than that of The Times. In addition, the large picture on the front page really works. (It seems people are finally catching on to larger pictures)

Unlike Iafrica, for example, the re-design was also more than skin-deep. Few things rankle as much as a site where the front end is not aligned with the site’s underlying structure. The creation of sections like “Courts” was also a brave and well-thought-out move.

On the whole, MG is probably the only site in South Africa that can really be compared to industry-leaders such as The New York Times or The Guardian. Had it not been for their difficulties in growing traffic they would have been my pic for site of the year.

SURPRISE OF THE YEAR – Beeld www.beeld.com

After years of neglect, the Afrikaans media finally started taking online media a bit more seriously over the last two or so years. Riding the crest of this wave, is Beeld’s website. (Beeld is the country’s largest daily newspaper by some margin.)

Essentially, their phenomenal rise in traffic in 2008 is due to two things: 1. There was a massive void waiting to be filled in online Afrikaans, and 2. they have a very strong newspaper brand and infrastructure to leverage.

Like MG though, they are operating in a niche, and even though there are lots of growth potential yet to be exploited, there will be a sealing.

Check back soon for my predictions for 2009.

How IOL could beat News24

Without that much trouble, or even that much investment, www.IOL.co.za could overtake News24 as South Africa's top website.

In part, one can make this kind of claim because IOL is still the country's second largest news website – despite their best efforts to drive away users with their shoddy design and lack of online know-how.

The reason why IOL is still hanging in there, and also the reason why they could improve so much, is that they have certain fundamentals very well in place.

The fundamentals

Probably the best thing that IOL has going for it is the relatively high amount of exclusive content the site gets from the newspapers in the Independent group. This gives the site a massive edge over News24 when it comes to things like columns. (almost invariably IOL's columns are worth reading, whereas the blogs that News24 presents as columns tends to be of a much lower standard.)

As mentioned in previous posts, all the news sites have access to the same wires. So, what gives one's content the edge over an other's, is the exclusives. IOL 1 – 0 News24.

This is not to say that IOL can take it easy. Indeed, none of the local news sites have really managed to leverage their relationships with newspapers with any great success. This is of course partly due to the fact that SA newspapers tend to be reluctant to share too much content with their online partners.

Still, the growth is online, and any company that ignores this will fall behind.

Apart from their exclusive content, the other thing that counts in IOL's favour, is the fact that they have built up a substantial user base. This, and the ability to refer people to the site from their newspapers gives them a lovely platform to build from.

Why they are losing ground

The most obvious problem with IOL is that the layout and design of the site is terribly out of date. Compare for example to a site like www.guardian.co.uk .

The problem however goes much deeper than just the basic look and feel, since the whole way in which the site is constructed and laid out feels clumsy and counterintuitive. Links to IOL Sport and IOL Parenting right next to each other? And announcing this week's column by YYY, and not mentioning what the column is about? Please, these are really basic things.

Possibly worst of all, is the poor editing on the front page. As a test, visit www.iol.co.za and see how many spelling or typing errors you can spot on the front page. I've done this a few times, and the lowest score so far is 2.

Underlying all these issues, there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm and understanding for the online medium - or maybe just a lack of resources, in which case the lack of enthusiasm and understanding is located higher up in the management hierarchy.

Note: This lack of online know-how is also illustrated in the sites failure to develop its community aspects. But I wont go into that here.

What needs to be done

The good news, is that things can be fixed quite easily. A proper, from the bottom up, re-think of how the site is structured, along with a clean modern redesign will do wonders.

Add to that a few high quality web editors and some creative people to keep things fresh, and a combination of wires and quality content from the newspapers will take care of the rest.

Of course, for any of this to happen, people higher up in the Independent group will have to start taking IOL.co.za more seriously.

As always, it will come down to vision, or a lack thereof.

News24's Achilles heal

www.news24.com is the most successful South African website by some margin. Yet, their domination may not necessarily last that much longer. Some weaknesses in their offering and some more astute competition could swing things.

The good

To start with, it should be recognized that News24 is doing a number of things very well. Possibly the most important of these, is the way in which they have managed to build the News24 brand. There is quite simply no other brand that gets close to what they have achieved.

In terms of their offering, their biggest asset is the speed at which they publish news. Crucially, this makes it a site you can visit a few times a day and see very different content each time. It also means that they are usually first with breaking news.

In addition, some of the content that flows in from Fin24, Health24, and there other partner sites also adds value. This is a good example of how sites can feed off each other to their mutual benefit.

The threat

One of the major potential problems with News24, is their relative lack of exclusive content. Most of what they run comes straight off the wires – i.e. nothing prevents other sites from running exactly the same content. And, indeed, you often find the same stories on News24 than what you do on the other news sites.

The ideal model seems to be wire material combined with exclusives. The problem with News24, is that their exclusives are generally not of a very high standard.

Some good stories do make it onto the site from Fin24 and so on, but on the whole there is really very little to complement the wire material. And in particular, some of their columnists are embarrassingly poor.

Better leveraging of their partnerships within the media24 group and the 24 sites more generally seems to be the obvious solution. And in addition, simply buying more good writing could also help.

Keeping up

Whereas the MyNews24 section seems to be doing reasonably well, News24 hasn't really managed to make things like videos and blogging work for them.

There is for example nothing that compares to something like mg.co.za's "Thought Leader" section, or the Guardian's "comment is free."

Whereas some of this may be due to the way in which the 24 sites are structured, it certainly limits the offering and compares badly to mg.co.za and thetimes.co.za.

Turning into a tabloid?

Another point maybe worth noting, is that News24 seems to have shifted their focus to more of a tabloid style of news coverage.

Things like celebrity news and trashy sex columns are getting a lot of exposure. These are of course easy ways of driving your traffic up and may indeed suggest that the focus is shifting to more of a mass market rather as opposed to the more serious readership of thetimes.co.za and mg.co.za and even something like Business Day.

As a result, something of a disconnect is developing between Fin24 and News24. And this disconnect may well be exploited by sites who can offer both solid financial and general news coverage.

The verdict

The strong brand and the momentum of the whole media24 online offering should keep News24 ahead of the competition in terms of traffic for the foreseeable future.

Yet, the fact that 80% plus of their offering can be reproduced with a wire subscription and a few people to code and load must be of concern.

And with sites like mg.co.za and thetimes.co.za managing to combine wire material with superior exclusives, the threat is very real. While mg.co.za's focus will remain a bit of a niche, the wider appeal of TheTimes could make it a real competitor.

The Times considered

www.thetimes.co.za may be one of the newest players on the local scene, but they may well end up being the big online story of 2008. If anyone is ready to challenge News24 and IOL's domination, it is the times.

So, what are they doing right

The first and most obvious thing that makes the Times stand out is its ultra modern layout. It is the only of the local websites to keep up with international trends – compare for example to www.guardian.co.uk and www.timesonline.co.uk, both of which had redesigns last year.

Why exactly these three-column layouts are working so well is unclear. They do however manage to squeeze a lot in without letting things feel cluttered.

The site also does a good job of integrating podcasts and video. And, even though the quality of the video does some times disappoint, they are presenting it in a better way than any of their competitors.

In terms of the real meat of the site, the Times are also quite solid. They have the wires pretty well covered and they do get some exclusive content from the paper.

Still, more exclusive content would boost the site immensely. With all the news sites building their offerings around stories from the wires, it is the exclusives that make sites stand out.

In the Sunday Times and its daily version, thetimes.co.za has a very strong partner to leverage for this kind of content. If they can source enough exclusives through this channel, their offering will really make the likes of news24 pail in comparison.

Another obvious strength is the "Times" brand. It is quite impressive how the site reinforces the brand identity. The feeling is one of a pretty serious news website, but nevertheless an interesting one. This has a lot to do with the fact that they do not chase hits with trashy or tabloid style stories.

Indeed, with news24 seemingly adjusting their focus to a more tabloid-like/mass market audience more serious news readers will be left looking for their news elsewhere. As things are going, the Times are ideally placed to snap up some of those readers.

Another impressive thing about the Times is how they link to official documents – reports, court papers, and the like. The ability to link to content and to provide extensive background information for those who are interested is one of the most powerful things about online media. Really, it isn't that hard to do.

Even though some of their articles to elicit quite a number of comments, thetimes haven't quite nailed the community side of things. Something like the Guardian's "comment is free" section or mg.co.za's "thought leader" section may be the solution.

Either way, thetimes.co.za may well be the big growth story of 08. They already tick most of the boxes and if they can expand on that with more exclusive content and a stronger community element, the sky is the limit.