[BN]formed. [BX]torted. [BS]asperated.
Oct. 24th, 2012 07:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogIt's putting 21st century iLipstick on a decidedly mid-20th century pig:
The Buffalo News decided to celebrate their new-journalism paywall by rebranding the entire paper with this stylized logo and concept-album ad campaign. [BN]formed. [BN]lightened. [BN]tertained.
Also, likely, they [BN]raged, over at the corporate offices of Barnes and Noble, which has put a bit of effort into building BN as a shorthand for their brand (including owning the bn.com domain name since 1994). But these days, Messrs. Beans and Noodles have bigger problems with their own business model to take the time to sue Warren Buffett, so the News will probably get away with it.
Not that they're doing a good job of it.
They announced the paywall over the summer. One of the oddities of it, which I've mentioned here before, is that they're charging more to not deliver the paper to your door than they are to deliver it once a week. (This is to placate the old-journalism advertisers who only count physical copies.) So, despite us doing just fine without killing half a tree every Sunday for the past almost-decade, I signed up for Sunday-only service right before the wall went up on October 1st.
Or didn't. Things haven't been going well over there. They also decided to revamp their entire online interface, including making a full "virtual copy" of the day's paper, ads and everything but the coupons, available online. Unfortuately, they weren't quite ready with the IT work by October 1st; links to the old-style articles, going back years, suddenly no longer worked, and their commenting function also shat the [BN]ed. (I haven't missed any of THAT drivel at all, although you can go here to read some of the Hall of Shame comments from older articles that got tumblr'd.)
My credit card got duly charged, but come September 30, no Sunday paper. Apparently there was a phone message asking me to "confirm" delivery. I called back close to a dozen times and each time, either they were either closed or I was subjected to a 10-minute introductory voicemail prompt. Finally, after four No Paper Sundays, I got through yesterday. Among other things, the long prompt told me they'd pushed back the paywall to next week while they "work things out." In time, I got a representative, who said she'd notify the carrier and that I would not be charged for those undelivered four issues....
which would explain why, at 6 this fine Wednesday morning, there were very bright headlights blaring into our living room as "the carrier" started our daily subscription. I caught him and headed him off. "You weren't on my manifest," he apologized for the previous misses.
Don't worry, dude. "No harm, no foul" doesn't begin to express it.
At least he brought it to the front steps instead of tossing it from a moving car to the very edge of our driveway, like they used to the LAST time we subscribed to this [BS] paper.
The Buffalo News decided to celebrate their new-journalism paywall by rebranding the entire paper with this stylized logo and concept-album ad campaign. [BN]formed. [BN]lightened. [BN]tertained.
Also, likely, they [BN]raged, over at the corporate offices of Barnes and Noble, which has put a bit of effort into building BN as a shorthand for their brand (including owning the bn.com domain name since 1994). But these days, Messrs. Beans and Noodles have bigger problems with their own business model to take the time to sue Warren Buffett, so the News will probably get away with it.
Not that they're doing a good job of it.
They announced the paywall over the summer. One of the oddities of it, which I've mentioned here before, is that they're charging more to not deliver the paper to your door than they are to deliver it once a week. (This is to placate the old-journalism advertisers who only count physical copies.) So, despite us doing just fine without killing half a tree every Sunday for the past almost-decade, I signed up for Sunday-only service right before the wall went up on October 1st.
Or didn't. Things haven't been going well over there. They also decided to revamp their entire online interface, including making a full "virtual copy" of the day's paper, ads and everything but the coupons, available online. Unfortuately, they weren't quite ready with the IT work by October 1st; links to the old-style articles, going back years, suddenly no longer worked, and their commenting function also shat the [BN]ed. (I haven't missed any of THAT drivel at all, although you can go here to read some of the Hall of Shame comments from older articles that got tumblr'd.)
My credit card got duly charged, but come September 30, no Sunday paper. Apparently there was a phone message asking me to "confirm" delivery. I called back close to a dozen times and each time, either they were either closed or I was subjected to a 10-minute introductory voicemail prompt. Finally, after four No Paper Sundays, I got through yesterday. Among other things, the long prompt told me they'd pushed back the paywall to next week while they "work things out." In time, I got a representative, who said she'd notify the carrier and that I would not be charged for those undelivered four issues....
which would explain why, at 6 this fine Wednesday morning, there were very bright headlights blaring into our living room as "the carrier" started our daily subscription. I caught him and headed him off. "You weren't on my manifest," he apologized for the previous misses.
Don't worry, dude. "No harm, no foul" doesn't begin to express it.
At least he brought it to the front steps instead of tossing it from a moving car to the very edge of our driveway, like they used to the LAST time we subscribed to this [BS] paper.