Stuff website and that goofy animated purple "S"

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#3184647 21-Jan-2024 08:02

quickymart:

I think the majority of those sections were not carried over to the "new, improved" site.

I just tried it again myself, stuck in the neverending loop on Firefox.

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JimmyH

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#3184666 21-Jan-2024 10:32

gzt:
JimmyH: A whole bunch of sections that aren't remotely news:

Your list sounds almost identical to the contents of the weekend edition of the NZ Herald newspaper last time I saw one. The weekday edition is a lot smaller. This is a reality of the small size of the NZ market. The big players must cover all bases and get the biggest audience possible and cover a large number of demographics.

Possibly. It's been a long time since I have seen the Herald, weekend or weekday. My comments were limited to Stuff, and I wasn't trying to say that it was better or worse than the Herald. You will note that the Herald didn't appear on the list of sites I stated that I usually use to get news.

And I get that the market is small. However, my point was that Stuff is still pitching itself as a serious heavyweight site for people who want to know the news. And it isn't. It has comparatively little news content or analysis, and a fair proportion of what it does have is reprinted from other sources and stale. If I cared about Harry and Meghan I would buy the Woman's Weekly. If I wanted to read an column on what someone called Dave thought about his neighbours' dog barking there are plenty of those on Reddit. If I wanted a car commercial then there are plenty of those on pretty much any site if I turn my adblocker off. The reason I would go to Stuff is if I want news, and there basically isn't much. There is so much serious stuff happening in the world that they could be covering, and if they do cover it at all what they do is very dumbed down and "once over lightly".

And I had another look at the site before I posted this to see if I had been too harsh. No I hadn't. And what's with the huge section called "Stuff Shorts" that's highlighted in fluorescent yellow and shoved in readers faces now? Have they given up trying to be the National Enquirer of new sites and decided to try and be TikTok now?

gzt

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#3184671 21-Jan-2024 10:44

You will note that the Herald didn't appear on the list of sites I stated that I usually use to get news.

Noted.

However, my point was that Stuff is still pitching itself as a serious heavyweight site for people who want to know the news. And it isn't. It has comparatively little news content or analysis

You're simply wrong. It is a news heavyweight with enormous national coverage plus international coverage and national opinion pieces. I use a huge number of national and international news sites over the course of a month. Stuff is one of those and it works well for me.

gzt

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#3184674 21-Jan-2024 10:56

In addition to the similarity to sections of the NZ Herald print edition I think you'll find your list of Stuff sections to be somewhat comparable to The New York Times print edition. The NYT serves a market segment in a much larger market and is decidedly highbrow but, it still has all that.

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#3184676 21-Jan-2024 11:01

tweake

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#3184680 21-Jan-2024 11:15

stuffs website has never been great.

the big problem with the current change is the delay for the first ad stops you accessing the site. that appears to be fixed and it appears they have a time out. its a common problem with a lot of ad supported content. things like tvnz app which freezes because the adserver is slow or not working.

the thing that annoys me with stuffs content, its not the sponsored articles, but the shill articles. much like heralds "one roof" content. blatant one sided content made by the industry for its own promotion. but stuff does it worse as they try to pass it off as a normal article. it gets even worse when they have factually wrong content and they shut off the comments.

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gzt

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#3184734 21-Jan-2024 11:35

it gets even worse when they have factually wrong content and they shut off the comments.

Example please.

tweake

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#3184746 21-Jan-2024 12:16

gzt:
it gets even worse when they have factually wrong content and they shut off the comments.

Example please.

sorry it will take me to long to go find, they have a habit of burying or deleting that sort of content.

its usually housing related (as i'm a performance housing fan boy) and good information is not always in the best interest of their advertisers. but to give credit where its due, they did run a story because of so many negative comments in other stories, and the qualified pro who was interviewed actually agreed with some of those commenters, which might have ruffled some feathers of the advertiser.

tweake

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#3184772 21-Jan-2024 13:58

gzt:
it gets even worse when they have factually wrong content and they shut off the comments.

Example please.

actually i just looked, they don't show the old stories anymore and the search function is gone. so i can't find examples anyway. sorry, just have to take my word for it.

Ge0rge

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#3184774 21-Jan-2024 14:04

gzt:
it gets even worse when they have factually wrong content and they shut off the comments.

Example please.

Could start here...

gzt

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#3184784 21-Jan-2024 14:26

I have participated in that thread for a long time and never seen an example of that nature in that geekzone thread.

I'm happy to take tweake's word for it pending an example, and it would not surprise me if Stuff closed comments because comments became abusive. I believe comments are open only for a short time anyway.

Personally I don't read the Stuff article comments I'm not sure why I never notice them. I've looked one or twice and didn't find it rewarding that could be it.

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tweake

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#3184805 21-Jan-2024 16:21

gzt: I have participated in that thread for a long time and never seen an example of that nature in that geekzone thread.

I'm happy to take tweake's word for it pending an example, and it would not surprise me if Stuff closed comments because comments became abusive. I believe comments are open only for a short time anyway.

Personally I don't read the Stuff article comments I'm not sure why I never notice them. I've looked one or twice and didn't find it rewarding that could be it.

o yeah stuff comment section gets nasty fast, sometimes they slip through. how long its open for is highly variable. i don't know who actually moderates it, its massively variable on what they let through. however i have no doubt there is several groups who monitor the articles and comments and complain/threaten when they dislike something. entire articles on certain topics disappear really fast.

i found it interesting that when they did the bit about lobby groups that the comment sections went super quiet. makes me wonder how much of the comments are from real people vers lobby groups.

nzkc

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#3184812 21-Jan-2024 16:56

tweake:

actually i just looked, they don't show the old stories anymore and the search function is gone. so i can't find examples anyway. sorry, just have to take my word for it.

You could still search with Google. Just add "site:stuff.co.nz" to your search. E.g.: Search for Property on Stuff

JimmyH

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#3184866 21-Jan-2024 18:34

You're simply wrong. It is a news heavyweight with enormous national coverage plus international coverage [...]

Sorry, in my opinion that's not credible. Stuff is many things. But a news heavyweight renowned for its enormous national and international coverage isn't one of them.

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#3184869 21-Jan-2024 18:42

JimmyH:

And I get that the market is small. However, my point was that Stuff is still pitching itself as a serious heavyweight site for people who want to know the news.

Stuff evolved out of Independent Newspapers Limited which I think was a Rupert Murdoch operation. Regardless of what you think of Murdoch, INL positioned itself a serious news outlet but I am not aware of any such claims being made since the era of Fairfax ownership. Under Sinead Boucher's ownership they seem to be offering serious news behind paywalled content with traditional regional newspaper branding, while the 'Stuff' brand is being used for lightweight free-to-air magazine style content. In a very difficult media environment this makes a lot of commercial sense.

NZME seem to be having some success with their paywall, but the people opening their wallets are probably the same baby boomer audience that their talk radio station targets. At the risk of sounding callous, this is going to become a problem when that audience starts to shuffle off their mortal coils.

In the end all high quality news content is going to have to sit behind paywalls due to the cannibalisation of advertising revenue from big tech companies. The obvious exception is public service outlets which are going to play a more pivotal role in the media landscaping going forward.

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