The Independent Blog

Posted by The Independent on January 5th, 2009 in Website

Here is a rather detailed explanation of why we had to change our website again.

For the record, we did not wish to do this the first time as we were happy with our old design. But when the newspaper is purchased by a new company, we have to change pretty much everything about the way we publish, and conform to the company’s tools and software.

When GateHouse purchased us, they required us to be on the same software and publishing system as all of their other newspapers. We did not want to give up our administrative ability, but didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Then, we were just as surprised as anyone when GateHouse sold us a mere 9 months later and in effect, caused us to go through the exact same redesign process to conform with the systems the Omaha papers use. I don’t mean that negatively, but it’s definitely been a very difficult year as we have gone through two huge transitions in a short amount of time.

So we didn’t redesign just for the sake of it, which seems to be a common complaint we’re hearing. It was required by our new owners. The good news is that with Omaha, we have administrative control back and can continue to evolve the site using feedback from our readers and we can continue to try to make it as accessible as possible for everyone.

The GateHouse design was very unpopular with many of our users (very sorry GateHouse, I love you guys, but it was), so we took the opportunity with our new owners to revamp and try to get back to what we had before in the way of easy navigation, since we had to do another redesign anyway.

As for the areas of the website that are not currently functioning properly, we do know about them and had the same issues when we switched to GateHouse’s design. The archives, and inside sections such as Occasions, weddings/engagements, Daily Record etc. will be functioning properly soon, but there will be downtime while we work on it.

We ask for your patience during this (hopefully last!) transition and we are doing all we can to get the site back up to the standards you’ve come to expect from the Grand Island Independent.