doodledee

So now that the Strib's website and print edition have been relaunched in new-and-improved editions, capital-E Everyone wants to have their say. And, predictably, most of what people have to say boils down to bitching about how much they don't like it. (Nostradoodle predicted as much, though he was too lazy to document it here because sweet, succulent StribBashing is such a low hanging fruit that it's almost *too* easy to pick and he likes a challenge.) Oh and PS, the Strib's website went tits up as soon as they flipped the switch this morning, which was basically dumping gasoline on the fire. Stand back.

That's why I've decided to be the first person to take the discussion meta and complain about the people complaining about the new design. Weee! I'll kick it off with an all-caps shout-out to the haters: YOU ARE ALL SO OBVIOUS AND BORING. IT'S A NEWSPAPER AND A WEBSITE. GET OVER YOURSELVES.

Howsabout some highlights? Here's a classy post from the editor of the City Pages over on their 'blotter' blog:

At this writing, shortly before 9 a.m., the Star Tribune's redesigned website--AKA, death by a thousand focus groups--has been unreachable for the better part of the past hour. You don't suppose it caught a glimpse of itself in a mirror and committed suicide, do you?

Or it could be that the new Strib is drawing so much traffic from curiosity seekers that the server is swamped. That, um, may not be a problem going forward.

Leaving aside the fact that the City Pages website was a horrible disaster of a site for years and years, AND the fact that the current design is the same formulaic "news site" as the new Strib.com - only not as good - how predictable of a response was this from the indie media crowd? About as predictable as a soccer-mom rip in a Beth Hawkins article, that's how. (To be fair, I think those are actually mandated by the style guide, but you get my point.) The comments are just as good, so read them, too.

Want more? Read the comments in the Strib's own redesign blog. My favorite: "Hate it. The old site was so much easier to navigate." Thanks!

Even more? I spent 30 seconds scrolling through MNSpeak's Blogregator searching for "Strib" and found this ("Tough to read, tough to navigate, tough to stomach") and this ("I was a little surprised to wake up this morning and find out that I now have a subscription to Highlights Magazine") and a bunch of others that I won't bother linking to because they all say the same thing. Literally, in some cases. Lazy is my favorite flavor of predictability, by the way.

(And yes, I'm aware that some people are being reasonable but those people take away the fun I'm having being meta, so I'll ignore them.)

Ok, that's enough. Here's to hoping someone complains about me complaining about people complaining. If that isn't the internet in a nutshell, I don't know what is.

Full Disclosure: I kinda like the redesign, especially the online version. If they fix search and stop moving URLs around, it'll even be better.