Omaha.com Revamp: First Impressions

The look of Omaha.com might be the most noticeable change to the Omaha World-Herald's online portal. But a more detailed examination of the website's re-launch reveals many more changes.

Less Content
The most noticeable change regular visitors of Omaha.com will notice is a vast reduction in the amount of content that is available online. Gone is the popular "21-day" story archive within each featured section (i.e., "Business," "Sports," "Living," etc.). Users are now offered the opportunity to view approximately a dozenstories, but not all of the printed content of a section that was formerly available. The following is also listed as not being published on Omaha.com: Axle Gulench and the Gate of No Return, the "Baby Page," personal ads, "Hints From Heloise," Sunday's real estate stories, the "Food Express" supplement, comics and several listings within the business section.

Seven Day Archives
Gone is the ability to search for archived content older than seven days. This is becoming quite common with other newspaper websites, including the Lincoln Journal Star (which offers content from the past 14 days). Instead, users are directed via a link ("Help/Info.") to information on how to purchase archived stories and content.

Registration
World-Herald Director of Marketing Mike Geppert says there are more than 300,000 registered users of Omaha.com. Early on, the site was not requiring registered users to log in (that changed Tuesday). The former registration interface was the subject of regular complaints to The Reader's Media Notes. Geppert said the system was set up to allow a single user to log in from up to three different IP addresses (locations), which would trigger registration "cookies" to track visit activity each time.

Fewer Advertisements
Gone are the numerous banner advertisements that lined the site's former home page. However, the "pop under" advertisements, which Geppert said are limited to one session per user per day, remain part of the new site.

No Editorial Pages
There are several editorial columnists Omaha.com does not have online rights to publish. However, at this time, it would appear that none of the newspapers "Opinion" section is available online, including the work of the newspaper's editorial cartoonist, Jeff Koterba.

The E Edition
Although not presented in the most user-friendly interface, the newspaper's E Edition allowed seven-day paid subscribers the opportunity to browser graphical pages of the newspaper as if they were reading the print edition. PDFs of each page - including special sections - were made available for each edition of the newspaper (Nebraska, Iowa, Metropolitan, etc.) If the feature is still available, a link to it is not readily apparent.

Browser Business
If you are viewing Omaha.com through anything but a Mozilla Firefox browser, you will see this message at the bottom of the home page: "This site best viewed at 1024 x 768 in Mozilla Firefox."

In Closing...
If there was ever an opportunity for another local news media source or outlet to gain online market share, this is it. Although a disclaimer on Omaha.com says, "We may have a few kinks to work out over the coming days," it is apparent that the newspaper is significantly scaling back the amount of content it makes available to non-subscribers. A lack of "breaking news" content, sports scores and a reduced amount of stories available - that several Omaha TV stations' websites (KETV.com, WOWT.com, etc.) do deliver - presents the opportunity for another local media source to win over dissatisfied users of Omaha.com.