Jamaica Observer vs Jamaica-Gleaner
Jamaica-The national dailies seem to be taking the internet more seriously. The Jamaica Gleaner, which I had always given the edge because of it’s first to sell ads so aggressively online, its move to build out local content parish by parish, its foray into live streaming via Power 106 fm, they welcomed online community in chatrooms and message boards and also simply because they got more traffic too than the Jamaica Observer.
The Jamaica observer I had given a failing grade because 1. they have not changed their site design changed in over 5 years 2. They had not embraced online advertising at all (you get transferred to the IT dept when trying to place an ad online 3. they had done little to broaden the content range on their site even though they are just behind the Jamaica Gleaner in terms of online traffic; they also rejected online community having built a very vibrant message board before it was fashionable and then killed it. According to Alexa Jamaica Gleaner is the 24th most popular site Jamaicans visit and Jamaica Observer is 29th. Then in terms of backlinks (people linking back to your online content because they think it’s worthy) Jamaica Gleaner has 58971 and the Jamaica Observer has only 19205.
Now when the message that quality Content (text, audio,video) is king has finally taken route in mainstream media, at least with out two national dailies, I look forward to the see who will rule.
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I felt the same way about the Jamaica Observer but on my recent trip to Jamaica I was given a private preview of the new Observe e-paper and my jaw was on the floor.
This is definitely going to up the ante when it rolls out in the next few weeks. It is an exact replica of the paper - ads and all - that you can see everyday.
The Diaspora will be able to read the paper, print it out or save it as a PDF for reading later. It is subscription based though but should be well worth it for those who want local news.
It is also searchable and will launch with a nice archive. The Observer website itself though needs a lot of work as you point out - IT department to place ads is simply ridiculous.