I'm age 26 so I may or may not count in this "younger audience" malarkey but these new DS articles insult my intelligence. I'd much rather see an article with a summary about what happened on one of the soaps, rather than an article that just consists of a bunch of tweets saying "OMG WHAT A BIG PLOT TWIST".
26 isn't that young. Stupid teenagers is what DS are probably trying to impress!
The soap bitch article annoys me as it has Janine at 3 and Tracey Barlow at 2 wtf.
Janine pisses all over Tracey! Janine was a problem kid right from the start. Tracey was only turned into a bitch because Corrie were jealous of Janine and thats Daren Little's own words.
I thought the same thing reading that. I wouldn't have even included Tracy in that list never mind ranked her number 2. To say petty, desperate, wannabe baddie Tracy is a better soap bitch than the legendary Janine Butcher and Kim Tate is madness.
The Buzzfeed style articles. The OK/Heat magazine style "OMG! WOW! NO WAY!" headlines. The clickbaity headlines. They've been regularly criticised in many of the forums for months, yet in typical DS style it's all been ignored and they've ploughed on regardless.
Yeah, I find all that annoying too, as well as stuff like "the feels" and blatant clickbait. But it's where it all seems to be heading, not just on DS. To be honest, I think it's more a sort of style journalists and magazine/media type people like, and they likely all follow each other on Twitter, and let's face it, they probably care more about each other's opinions then the opinions of their audience.
The site is full of gifs now as well and along with the ever-increasing abundance of adverts these can slow down your computer. It's got to a point where I rarely visit the main site.
I have seen quite a few mistakes in articles, mostly in the soap section but other areas of the site aren't immune. The strange thing is some of these authors rarely used to make the kind of howling mistakes that are now becoming common so I wonder if more than one person is actually editing the stories prior to publishing to meet with the new editorial style and that's where confusion is creeping in regarding show information etc. The soap ones used to be written by Daniel with Sophie Dainty doing the rest. Now there are loads of authors and I'm not sure all of them know the first thing about soaps.
It's obvious the new style of writing doesn't come naturally to the team who aren't used to it. The transition hasn't been smooth with many articles coming across as a bit cringe and desperate. It feels a bit more natural on sites who've been doing it for years and thus their staff are used to it. But it's never a style that's going to appeal to me. That's why I stick with the Radio Times site now for spoilers etc.
Metro is another site that has loads of list and tweet articles in the vein of BuzzFeed etc. I think DS now see them as their main competition. I don't know why these sites do it when if we want to know what is being said on Twitter we can look for ourselves and other sites were already providing this kind of shallow service. DS was fine as it was.
"Showbiz, entertainment and media news" - hardly see any of this anywhere on Digital Spy anymore. I also hate the "Buzzfeed" approach the website has adapted over the last year (and I think I fall under the demographic DS are trying to target now). I rarely see actual soap news or interviews with actors/producers anymore, just crap that's already been listed like "top 10 soap villains" and "9 reasons why blah blah blah". I miss the way Digital Spy used to be. And I don't know about anyone else but it annoys me that they no longer report the TV ratings for UK TV but continue reporting for US TV, don't understand this.
Soap fan delivers perfect response to shamers. What happened next will amaze you.
Not restricted to Digital spy sadly. Even once respected broadsheet newspapers now run click bait news websites. The articles have typos galore. Just three tweets vaguely on one topic are the basis for a news article.
It saddens me to see the state of the main DS site now.
The sudden GIF overload is annoying too.
Yes. The main site is beyond awful. Does anyone from Hearst actually think it is acceptable? It's actually embarrassing. What I cannot fathom is why DS wants to be like every other crap website instead of standing out from the crowd?!
Anyway - I never visit the main site anymore. My shortcut is directly to the forums.
"Showbiz, entertainment and media news" - hardly see any of this anywhere on Digital Spy anymore. I also hate the "Buzzfeed" approach the website has adapted over the last year (and I think I fall under the demographic DS are trying to target now). I rarely see actual soap news or interviews with actors/producers anymore, just crap that's already been listed like "top 10 soap villains" and "9 reasons why blah blah blah". I miss the way Digital Spy used to be. And I don't know about anyone else but it annoys me that they no longer report the TV ratings for UK TV but continue reporting for US TV, don't understand this.
For a British site with an overwhelmingly British readership, DS is very American-oriented now. Even spoiling TV shows for UK viewers days, weeks or months in advance. The first article about it will contain a spoiler warning and spoiler-free title, any subsequent reporting though will blatantly disregard this as though by now it's common knowledge.
That's been happening for a while longer than the editorial tone taking a complete nosedive though. Why any self-respecting journalist would want to dumb down their work is beyond me, because there really are some intelligent, funny people working at DS yet it no longer translates on the page.
DS has gradually been going down hill (IMHO) ever since Hearst UK took over
Yes. The main site is beyond awful. Does anyone from Hearst actually think it is acceptable? It's actually embarrassing. What I cannot fathom is why DS wants to be like every other crap website instead of standing out from the crowd?!
Anyway - I never visit the main site anymore. My shortcut is directly to the forums.
Maybe DS haven't got a choice as to what the site looks like If this Hearst has taken over. Does anyone know why they've taken over this site and destroyed it by any chance? >:(
Maybe DS haven't got a choice as to what the site looks like If this Hearst has taken over. Does anyone know why they've taken over this site and destroyed it by any chance? >:(
You might be right - however if the main site page hits are down (as someone suggested on a previous thread) and its forum members are publicly slating it, surely DS should be saying to Hearst "Hang on a minute, this isn't working...."
They cut and paste old articles under a new headline if there's a marginally updated bit of information.
I'm fed up of reading that Shane Richie thinks Redwater is like the Wickerman. Either write a new article and get fresh quotes or wait until you have sufficient info for something newsworthy.
We are being updated on the number of rows that vile Smegan McKenna creature is having with her equally desperate pals by the hour .. someone chuck her back in the sea ffs ..
They cut and paste old articles under a new headline if there's a marginally updated bit of information.
I'm fed up of reading that Shane Richie thinks Redwater is like the Wickerman. Either write a new article and get fresh quotes or wait until you have sufficient info for something newsworthy.
I have also noticed the quote regurgitation to pad out articles.
Those 'Everything you need to know about...' articles are annoying and like another poster said they consist only of text copied and pasted from other stories.
Those 'Everything you need to know about...' articles are annoying and like another poster said they consist only of text copied and pasted from other stories.
But for us the Peggy EYNTK (which we intend to keep updated as and when new info comes in) has been one of our most-read pieces across the whole site this week. The Redwater one is also doing really well. They're probably not revealing much for avid forum fans who already know every detail, but the main DS site has a much broader appeal than that - and for other sections of the audience we've discovered it can be useful to have these pieces as a one-stop shop for info on big topics. Especially something like Peggy's return which could hook in lapsed viewers.
We genuinely do try to take all feedback on board, but the list type features which aren't so popular on the forum have been huge for us on the site this year - we wouldn't spend time doing them otherwise. From our point of view they're an addition to the site (and they won't appeal to everyone) rather than a replacement - we're still covering as much news and spoilers as we ever did. If I can say so (!) I think we've actually had a pretty strong start to the year in terms of news with our exclusives on Nancy/Tamwar exits, Warren's Hollyoaks return, various casting announcements we've had first etc etc.
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I only use the forums now. I don't really go on the main site anymore unless there's the occasional big news or something interesting. Other than that, I completely avoid it for the most part since I really dislike the layout. It's too cluttered and wide for me. The navigation is slow and such a drag for me. I stick around here but admittedly, I have been less active since the whole revamp of DS.
I'm another one who never visits the main site now.
And if what Daniel says above is true, and the new "here's 10 things twitter screeched about nothing" articles are going down a storm, I guess that's permanent.
Comments
26 isn't that young. Stupid teenagers is what DS are probably trying to impress!
I thought the same thing reading that. I wouldn't have even included Tracy in that list never mind ranked her number 2. To say petty, desperate, wannabe baddie Tracy is a better soap bitch than the legendary Janine Butcher and Kim Tate is madness.
The sudden GIF overload is annoying too.
Yeah, I find all that annoying too, as well as stuff like "the feels" and blatant clickbait. But it's where it all seems to be heading, not just on DS. To be honest, I think it's more a sort of style journalists and magazine/media type people like, and they likely all follow each other on Twitter, and let's face it, they probably care more about each other's opinions then the opinions of their audience.
I have seen quite a few mistakes in articles, mostly in the soap section but other areas of the site aren't immune. The strange thing is some of these authors rarely used to make the kind of howling mistakes that are now becoming common so I wonder if more than one person is actually editing the stories prior to publishing to meet with the new editorial style and that's where confusion is creeping in regarding show information etc. The soap ones used to be written by Daniel with Sophie Dainty doing the rest. Now there are loads of authors and I'm not sure all of them know the first thing about soaps.
It's obvious the new style of writing doesn't come naturally to the team who aren't used to it. The transition hasn't been smooth with many articles coming across as a bit cringe and desperate. It feels a bit more natural on sites who've been doing it for years and thus their staff are used to it. But it's never a style that's going to appeal to me. That's why I stick with the Radio Times site now for spoilers etc.
Metro is another site that has loads of list and tweet articles in the vein of BuzzFeed etc. I think DS now see them as their main competition. I don't know why these sites do it when if we want to know what is being said on Twitter we can look for ourselves and other sites were already providing this kind of shallow service. DS was fine as it was.
It's also strange how there's no longer any comments underneath articles, all sites have that regardless of editorial style,.
I have that and with all the blank spaces where the ads were it certainly shows how little content there is an article.
Ad block, kardashian block and twitter block would render ds empty
Not restricted to Digital spy sadly. Even once respected broadsheet newspapers now run click bait news websites. The articles have typos galore. Just three tweets vaguely on one topic are the basis for a news article.
DS has gradually been going down hill (IMHO) ever since Hearst UK took over
Yes. The main site is beyond awful. Does anyone from Hearst actually think it is acceptable? It's actually embarrassing. What I cannot fathom is why DS wants to be like every other crap website instead of standing out from the crowd?!
Anyway - I never visit the main site anymore. My shortcut is directly to the forums.
That's been happening for a while longer than the editorial tone taking a complete nosedive though. Why any self-respecting journalist would want to dumb down their work is beyond me, because there really are some intelligent, funny people working at DS yet it no longer translates on the page.
Maybe DS haven't got a choice as to what the site looks like If this Hearst has taken over. Does anyone know why they've taken over this site and destroyed it by any chance? >:(
You might be right - however if the main site page hits are down (as someone suggested on a previous thread) and its forum members are publicly slating it, surely DS should be saying to Hearst "Hang on a minute, this isn't working...."
I'm fed up of reading that Shane Richie thinks Redwater is like the Wickerman. Either write a new article and get fresh quotes or wait until you have sufficient info for something newsworthy.
But for us the Peggy EYNTK (which we intend to keep updated as and when new info comes in) has been one of our most-read pieces across the whole site this week. The Redwater one is also doing really well. They're probably not revealing much for avid forum fans who already know every detail, but the main DS site has a much broader appeal than that - and for other sections of the audience we've discovered it can be useful to have these pieces as a one-stop shop for info on big topics. Especially something like Peggy's return which could hook in lapsed viewers.
We genuinely do try to take all feedback on board, but the list type features which aren't so popular on the forum have been huge for us on the site this year - we wouldn't spend time doing them otherwise. From our point of view they're an addition to the site (and they won't appeal to everyone) rather than a replacement - we're still covering as much news and spoilers as we ever did. If I can say so (!) I think we've actually had a pretty strong start to the year in terms of news with our exclusives on Nancy/Tamwar exits, Warren's Hollyoaks return, various casting announcements we've had first etc etc.
I only use the forums now. I don't really go on the main site anymore unless there's the occasional big news or something interesting. Other than that, I completely avoid it for the most part since I really dislike the layout. It's too cluttered and wide for me. The navigation is slow and such a drag for me. I stick around here but admittedly, I have been less active since the whole revamp of DS.
And if what Daniel says above is true, and the new "here's 10 things twitter screeched about nothing" articles are going down a storm, I guess that's permanent.