Tue
Mar 25
12:18pm
This is why I like reading newspapers
Consider this screenshot from The Age Online.
That’s what I see when I browse The Age during my lunchbreak … I have a bookmarks toolbar turned on, tabs on, and my Windows Start bar on. (I wish I could use my MacBook when I’m in the office but that’s another story for another day.) The screenshot is 1008 x 588 pixels, so 639,744 pixels in total.
Now look at it again with the story highlighted.
The red box is 182 x 212 pixels in size, which is 38,584 pixels in total. This means that until I vertical scroll, just 6.03% of the pixels on the page are dedicated to the story I want to read.
To make things worse, there are 46,448 pixels of advertising (which is 7.26% of the screen real estate), and another 29,714 pixels of navigation that looks like advertising (4.65%). See below:
It’s bloody annoying and I reckon they’re doing it on purpose. Well, I know they’re doing it on purpose as (a) web sites don’t just design themselves, and (b) they need to fit heaps of ads in to pay for the thing, but what I mean is that I think they don’t actually want anyone to enjoy reading The Age Online because they’d rather those people go out and buy the paper.
Well it’s worked on me, Fairfax, because I much prefer to read The Age in print over online. Unfortunately you rarely get $1.50 out of me as I usually sit down in a cafe and read their copy. Sorry.