Baltimore City Paper recently published a feature about Globe Poster Company. If you didn't see it, check it out. The feature was excellent. In a nutshell, it's about a printing company that's been around for nearly 80 years. (Coincidentally, the place is practically in my back yard—or front yard, if you prefer your cliches to be more literal.)
Regardless, I'm not writing about Globe Poster Company (though I may, should I swing by and purchase some wicked awesome posters.) What I'm interested in is CP's online presentation of this feature.
The 3,000+ words that comprise its body are good. They're great, even. The information is useful, and the interviews are well done. The student's awestruck impression of the place is particularly insightful.
Unfortunately, I nearly missed the fact that there was an amazing photo gallery (by Frank Hamilton) at the bottom of the story. It's painful to see a publication so entrenched in the print mentality that it would bury such compelling material. “There's no place for it in our limited page layout, so the same must be true online.” (Hold on. I'm still choking on that one...)
Sure, CP included anchor text at the top of the page, but those six words are lost in the sea of words that surround it.
The gallery ought to have been first and foremost.
If the thousand word maxim is true, the 3,000+ words written by Chris Landers may have been rendered moot by Hamilton's photos. Too bad. The photos easily articulate several hundred thousand words, collectively spoken at the speed of your internet connection. For must of us, that's pretty fast, and it's certainly faster than any of us could have read the entire article.
The reason this upsets me is because the work of CP (and, in this case, of Landers), is so important. In the face of CP's recent publication downsize (and considering the more recent demise of The Baltimore Examiner), the only way one of Charm City's most valuable resources will survive is to manufactures a more compelling Web presence.
In sales terms, the Flash gallery is a catch 22. It's a fantastic user experience paired with little in the way of monetization potential. Though standard galleries afford a new ad for each refresh, I prefer the Flash varieties for ease of use and simple aesthetic appeal.
At any rate, the online presentation of this excellent article could have been much improved, and increasing the visibility of the photo gallery would have been an excellent start.
