The Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s two national newspapers, just launched their new Globe Books Online (after mercilessly killing in cold blood their Saturday Books tabloid feature, God forgive them). The new site is a complement to now merged & watered-down Focus & Books section.
I’m not sure what I expected, and though I am optimistic, there were a few disappointments in the launch. I certainly didn’t expect the new Globe Books Online to load to a picture of … Marlon Brando (?), and a host of links to books about film. If you were launching a new online space about cars and trucks, would you launch with a picture of a bicycle? And a bunch of reviews of skateboards? Me neither.
A few of the blogs I read regularly were similarly… cautious in their praise: That Shakespearian Rag, and index//mb both ask some good questions.
I have faith though. I have hope. The Globe and Mail has mostly been a solid adopter of what I think are good practices for newspapers in the web age; in fact they’ve been leaders. Their decision to not just quietly kill their book section, as so many other papers have, but to relocate it is encouraging too. They have the chance and the resources to build an important web space for Canadian (and global, one hopes) readers and writers to congregate. So the idea is right, and here’s to hoping the Globe’s accountants continue to support the initiative, and that the people involved succeed in making it relevant.
Here is my little stab at some randomish suggestions:
- I want a Globe Books Menu bar, under the main menu bar (as with Report on Business)
- This menu could contain: Authors, Books, Lists, Reviews, Fiction, Non-Fiction, Cities, ? etc.
- Re: Cities, can you have listing of all literary events in cities around the country? (tech challenge there, but some system to allow bookstores/libraries to enter the info themselves … the benefit of which is: you become a central place where all book-related institutions want to be/participate in. Key to building community, is serving an important purpose to that community.
- I want an easy sortable index of writers/books/reviews
- Would be nice to have author pages, collecting everything from the Globe, but also info from whatever web sources can be found (what the hell, why not make it a wiki? … the wiki of Canadian writers/authors…)
- Make a feed of all the canadian blogs you can find, syndicate & publish links. Highlight the good ones, good articles.
- Make a feed of the 20 best non-Canadian book blogs/newspapers etc out there, syndicate & publish links. Highlight the good articles.
- Make a feed of book podcasts, syndicate & publish links (eg: http://earideas.com/earideas/explore/books/rss)
- Flashlightworthy is a great site that makes all sorts of obscureish lists of books; in print this is not compelling to me; online it is. Make something like this a little featurette.
- The site looks cramped, not sure why. Report on Business gets it right, it seems. Main article as centre column, I guess? Anyway, some designy types need to take another poke at the site.
- Is there a plan for community beyond commenters? This will be tricky to build, so have a good hard think about what core value you can bring as a platform, and build slowly around that.
Anyway, I’m hoping that Mathew Ingram’s new role as online communities editor means he’ll be involved in the site…He’s a smart man, plugged into the right things on the web. The group behind the web has been receptive to comments and criticisms, on Twitter no less!
