Boston Globe Now Subscription-Only

Youkilis vs Wild

New Member
Mar 30, 2009
352
Boston, MA
adam42381 said:
So, they want a little more than $200/year to read their articles online. Hahahahahahaha.
 
I might be grandfathered in, but I pay much less for a Sunday-only subscription that also gets me full online access.
 
Obviously still only pertains to those in the Boston area who might otherwise want Mass./New England general news. Out of towners probably can do as well or better with other sources for the Sox.
 

JimD

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 29, 2001
8,681
Boston.com is terrible now.  General news 'articles' are little more than rehashes of tweets, usually from other websites.  If I still lived in greater Boston then I'd probably take advantage of the Sunday subscription package with full access to the Globe site, but I'm not paying for online-only access when I can get decent sports coverage for free on multiple other sites and I only periodically check in on Boston-area news and happenings. 
 

mabrowndog

Ask me about total zone...or paint
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 23, 2003
39,676
Falmouth, MA
They've had that error page for awhile. Over a year at the very least, and still pathetic.
 

Reverend

for king and country
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2007
64,026
Trolling people when it's your shit that's broken is all kinds of fucked.
 

geoduck no quahog

not particularly consistent
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Nov 8, 2002
13,024
Seattle, WA
The free website is an embarrassment - and as of now I see no reason to ever visit it again. If this is an attempt to get me to pay them for actual quality baseball coverage, it failed.
 
What's wrong with me that I can't even find a link to current standings?
 
Bye Bye Globe...I'll miss what used to be.
 

AbbyNoho

broke her neck in costa rica
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
12,177
Northampton, Massachusetts
I used to have the sports page on my favorites bar to check standings and times of games, but like other people have mentioned it's no longer on there. They've decided the look they're going for is vapid tumblr and blog entries. Completely useless. It's off my bar now. I don't think I'll ever return to that site. 
 

joyofsox

empty, bleak
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
7,552
Vancouver Island
Because it was often timely with posting news items, I used to visit Extra Bases several times a day.
 
What is there now is pure shit and I can honestly say that I don't miss the old EB.
 

NortheasternPJ

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 16, 2004
19,271
I agree the new site is awful. The full background ads are horrible

It's like a Geocities site.
 

The Gray Eagle

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2001
16,720
They've done a masterful job of turning New England's leading newspaper into a mildly popular, hard to use blog.
 

crystalline

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 12, 2009
5,771
JP
You guys are talking about Boston.com , right? It used to be better in part because a lot of the stories came from Globe employees. Over the past few months they have removed the last of the Globe writers and filled out the rest with links to tumblr and buzfeed, it seems- I too have stopped reading it.
I am tempted to buy the globe online and use bostonglobe.com as my local news source. I suppose that is the point.
 

JimD

Member
SoSH Member
Nov 29, 2001
8,681
The New York Times and various other publications seem to have hit on a successful formula.  Show all of the content and give non-subscribers the opportunity to read 5 to 10 free articles a month.  If people find it valuable enough, they'll pay for access.  Or go the WSJ route and make the most valuable stuff for subscribers only but provide some basic content for free.  The Globe has always seemed to have a scattershot approach with its two different sites.  I would have leveraged Boston.com and made it the official site by folding the Globe website into it instead of completely devaluing it the way they've done.  I haven't visited the site in weeks and don't bother buying the paper anymore on my visits backs to Massachusetts.  Picking up the Globe to read over coffee used to be a highlight of my trips back home but that was a long time ago.
 

IpswichSox

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2005
2,792
Suburbs of Washington, DC
Because it was often timely with posting news items, I used to visit Extra Bases several times a day.
 
What is there now is pure shit and I can honestly say that I don't miss the old EB.
 
Agreed.  I had Extra Bases on a tab open all day and refreshed multiple times a day.  What a spectacular waste, not just of Extra Bases, but of the new Globe site in general. 
 
WEEI's Full Count blog is showing some promise, especially with new writers being added. I just wish it was a little more "furiously updated" than it sometimes is. Extra Bases for me was a nice middle ground between a static news website that's updated once a day and Twitter, which while obviously timely can overwhelm with volume.
 

Doctuh

New Member
Aug 17, 2006
329
Maine
Ignoring the design, the content is the worst of internet idle timewasting already-linked-from-reddit junk. Better when the site had real news.
 

crystalline

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 12, 2009
5,771
JP

 
If the goal was to kill boston.com and drive traffic to bostonglobe.com, this has been a roaring success.
 

Harry Hooper

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 4, 2002
34,367
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Why are the lower numbers at the top on the left side? What am I reading?
 
Yeah, it looks like traffic to the Globe site declined significantly.
 

mt8thsw9th

anti-SoSHal
SoSH Member
Jul 17, 2005
17,120
Brooklyn
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Why are the lower numbers at the top on the left side? What am I reading?
 
A ranking. A lower number is better. That's why people chant "we're number 1!", and not "we're number 6,435!"
 

Harry Hooper

Well-Known Member
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Jan 4, 2002
34,367
mt8thsw9th said:
Being ranked 
 
 
A ranking.
 
How does that work? When I follow a link and get to the Globe's access traffic cop, I just move on. Technically, I got to the Globe's site, but I didn't spend any time there.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

posts way less than 18% useful shit
SoSH Member
Nov 17, 2010
14,425
Harry Hooper said:
 
How does that work? When I follow a link and get to the Globe's access traffic cop, I just move on. Technically, I got to the Globe's site, but I didn't spend any time there.
 
You don't know it, but you're talking about two different things.
 
As to your "traffic cop" point, they can see where people drop off on their site. They know how many people are leaving and at what point they're leaving. Google Analytics can track it all well enough, and I'm sure they're probably using other independent analytics as well.
 
As to the time you spent on the site, first, they can track the average session time per user (and see every users individual session time if they'd like) and bounce rate (someone that goes to a page and leaves before going to any other page on their site). The action you described would drive traffic, which is good for their advertisers, but bad for their own conversion numbers.
 
More importantly, however, is how well their site is performing relative to previous numbers and to industry standards. At its most basic level, they track the number of people to hit a page with a key CTA ("Call-to-action" like filling out a form on the website) and divide it by the number of people to complete the CTA to get a conversion number.
 
If you know your own conversion history and industry conversion history, you have some good beginner benchmarks to be able decide the success rate of that event/page. Knowing your budget on that particular event (ghost writers, salaries, website designers, etc) and dividing it by the total revenue created by the event will give you a basic ROI metric to gauge success level.
 
I have no idea how successful their site is, I haven't paid any attention nor do I care to, but I can guarantee that they have an entire product marketing and digital marketing team that are well aware of their current metrics, past metrics, and future goals.
 
Edit: As to the Alexa rating, it's good to see traffic increase and your site grow because, in a vacuum, it signifies that you're doing the other important things right. At the end of the day, nobody gives a shit. It's more important to rank well for targeted keywords and phrases. I would bet $100 that the Boston Globe would rather rank #1 in a targeted Google key phrase like "Best United States Newspaper" than have a good Alexa ranking.
 

riboflav

Member
SoSH Member
Jan 20, 2006
9,579
NOVA
How about some love for Boston.com and it's not a Chad Finn article?!?!? Yes, I'm serious.
 
While not super-technical, this article is a very good, in-depth look at why playing receiver for the Patriots tends to be harder than playing receiver for most teams. It's also amazing that if you ask Patriots players and coaches actual football questions, you get very detailed, long answers minus all the cliches and tension.
 
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extra_points/2014/09/what_makes_the_patriots_offense_so_difficult.html