RE: UKNM: FT.com

[Emilia Gwyn]

I do remember that back in Feb/March the general impression by the

national press and business news sites was that it was too confusing and

complicated and users were having problems navigating around the site.


Apparently before they launched they went out to California to gleam

knowledge from the Silicon Valley set and they advised  FT.com to stick

to the content -and leave the technology to be outsourced.  Apparently

even a couple of Californian based companies  offered to construct the

entire site, maintain it, and run the infrastructure in return for a

small percentage of the e-commerce revenue.  It was then suggested that

the FT should turn down all offers - perhaps in a keenness to protect

its editorial independence - and build as much as possible in-house.

This resulted in 'teething problems' and 10 days after the re-launch it

was rumoured that FT.com would have to be unplugged for a fortnight in

order to tackle all the bugs.  Frequent staff changes didn't help the

site's development either. However, since the site was relaunched in

February it is so far enjoying phenomenal success as significant number

of UK Web surfers now reportedly use the FT.com site as their first port

of call for each Web visit. 


Hope thats some help

Emilia Gwyn



Emilia Gwyn

Lansons Digital Media

42 St John Street

London EC1M 4DL

emiliaglansons [dot] com

t:  020 74908828

f:  020 74905460


-----Original Message-----

From: Phil Barrett [

philflow-interactive [dot] com (mailto:philflow-interactive [dot] com)

]

Sent: 13 September 2000 13:46

To:

uk-netmarketingmail [dot] chinwag [dot] com

Subject: UKNM: FT.com


Hi, all.


Just a quick one. Does anyone recall what reviewers said about the new

FT.com site when it was launched? I met people who didn't like it but I

wonder if anybody has actually written something...?


It's that left hand popup navbar that gets me... who will ever remember

to

use it?


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