currybetdotnet The Independent archive

'Sorry - this page cannot be found': How newspapers handle 404 errors - Part 2
A comment when I started my recent 'Newspaper Site Search Smackdown' series of posts prompted me to go and have a look at which British newspapers use sitemap.xml files. As it turned out, it was only the Daily Mail and The Scotsman which I noticed, although The Telegraph and The Mirror and Metro have them as well. It meant that I got to have a close look at the 404 error pages generated by the others. I thought it might...

Read the full post - Published May 6, 2008 in Daily Telegraph, Newspapers, The Independent, The Sun, The Times

Newspaper "Site Search Smackdown": Round 2 - The Telegraph vs The Independent
I'm running a series of smackdowns between British newspaper site search engines, to test how fresh their indexing is. Yesterday, in Round 1, The Daily Mail had the edge over The Sun. The Mail had 9 of their top 10 headlines indexed and findable via search by 9am - The Sun was left in their wake with only half of their top 10 stories in their index. Today it is the turn of The Telegraph and The Independent. The...

Read the full post - Published April 9, 2008 in Daily Telegraph, Newspapers, Search, The Independent

Reviewing The Independent's re-design for the Press Gazette
I had another piece appear in the Press Gazette a week or so a go, in their 'Expert Eye' column, looking at the recent web re-design by The Independent. I'm broadly approving of the new design, and certainly see it as a major step forward for a newspaper that earned a scathing review in my 'How Web 2.0 are British newspapers?' series last year. The site is more visually appealing, with a greater emphasis it seems on opinion and comment....

Read the full post - Published February 18, 2008 in Newspapers, The Independent

How accessible are Britain's online newspapers? Part 5 - The Independent
Last week I started a series of posts testing British newspaper websites against various accessibility standards and issues. So far I've looked at The Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror and The Guardian. Today it is the turn of The Independent. Text resize The Independent appears to be almost almost alone amongst the major newspapers in the UK in having a stylesheet 'widget' on the page to allow users to adjust the size of the text that they are viewing...

Read the full post - Published November 12, 2007 in Accessibility, Newspapers, Product review, The Independent, Web

A tour of Tour De France news sites - Abandons: CNN, The Times and The Independent
Since my exposure to live coverage of the Tour De France in Greece has been restricted to occasionally popping down to a nearby bar which shows Eurosport on satellite, I've mostly been following the now drugs-tainted 2007 edition on the internet. This week I've been reviewing the sites that I have been using, and have so far looked at the official site, state and semi-state broadcasters France 24 and The BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and Eurosport's online partnership with...

Read the full post - Published July 28, 2007 in CNN, Cycling, Newspapers, The Independent, The Times, Tour de France

The Independent's confusing use of timestamps
Whilst doing the research for my lengthy series about the "Web 2.0" features on British newspaper websites, I came across quite a few quirks on them that didn't fit into the main set of articles, but that I wanted to point out anyway. The Independent's site didn't get a good review from me - particularly their blogs - and there was another thing I found bewildering about their technical implementation - their use of time-stamps. On articles on The Independent's...

Read the full post - Published June 12, 2007 in Media, Newspapers, The Independent

Newspapers 2.0: How Web 2.0 is The Independent?
Over the last week-and-a-bit I've been studying how British newspapers have adopted so-called Web 2.0 technologies and services on their websites - things like RSS feeds, blogs, user generated comments, and social bookmarking widgets. So far I've looked at The Express, The Times, The Mirror, The Telegraph and the Daily Mail. Today I want to look at The Independent, a paper that has recently been much criticised for their lack of investment in their web site and adopting a cautious...

Read the full post - Published May 1, 2007 in Media, Newspapers, The Independent, Web

Listening to iPods can make you deaf
A wonderfully sensationalist front page splash from the Standard today to point out what man has known since the invention of the headphones, that listening to music loudly for a long time damages your hearing.    It wasn't quite clear from the article what was so product specific about this type of hearing damage to warrant billboards proclaiming "IPOD HEALTH ALERT". Maybe the Standard knows that the AAC compression recommended by Apple emits additional ear-destroying sonic frequencies which other mp3...

Read the full post - Published May 11, 2005 in Apple, Evening Standard, The Independent

The Independent on Sunday's sense of fair play
Yesterday The Independent on Sunday led with a story claiming "Howard stirs race row with attack on Gypsies", citing: an advertisement on page 8 of this newspaper Having been happy to take the party's money and run the advert, in what I am sure must have been a total coincidence caused by the layout of other stories in the paper, the continuation of the front page story ended up on page 9. Which just happened to mean that the full-page...

Read the full post - Published March 21, 2005 in Politics, The Independent

Here is the news you may have missed
A very sharp front page from The Independent today. Although not as dry as the Bristol Evening Post's take on yesterdays events: Tetbury Man To Wed...

Read the full post - Published February 11, 2005 in The Independent

London Phone Codes "Change"

Published July 14, 2004 in BBC, Daily Mail, Media, Newspapers, OFCOM, The Guardian, The Independent

When lack of standards compliance makes the news

Published January 20, 2004 in Microsoft, The Independent, Web

Sky's the limit for the tabloid Independent

Published October 15, 2003 in BBC, Television, The Independent