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May 16, 2011

New LVRJ Mobile Site Seems to Have a Few Issues

Posted by Hunter

In the past week or so, the folks at the Review-Journal have rolled out a new mobile Web site. Unfortunately, in the process it appears a few things aren't quite working properly yet.

Like many news organizations, the RJ now has a mobile specific site designed to make it easier to read on smaller screens. This practice is not entirely without controversy - some make a strong argument that a well designed Web site doesn't need a separate mobile version and that users with sophisticated smart-phones would rather just get the full features of the 'real' site. This is even more true with larger devices like iPad and thus companies like the New York Times just show the real deal (or have custom apps).

Some of the issues I've noticed with m.lvrj.com:

1. You're sent to the mobile site by default and there doesn't appear to be an easy way (any way?) to access the real site on an iPhone.

2. The desktop site and the mobile site appear to be at least somewhat out of sync. For example, there's an article about Pinnacle appearing on lvrj.com right now that doesn't appear on the mobile site - in fact, the entire business sub-section seems a day old. I'm guessing the mobile site isn't directly published by their CMS - looks like the content is delayed somewhat. Not exactly a great feature for a news site, to be missing the latest content.

and perhaps the biggest issue:

3. If you follow a link to a specific story from a tweet or email on an iPhone or Android device, you don't get the story, you get the mobile index. No context and no clues as how to find the story, if it's even on the mobile site (see #3). This behavior seems at least partially dependent on the referring site - when clicking through from TWHT I got the real site but when I clicked the link from an email (no referrer), I get redirected.

Hopefully these are just temporary bugs that will be fixed soon. What's weird is that I'm getting the results inconsistently, as if different requests are hitting different Web servers that aren't all configured the same way. At first I thought I was crazy or had done something that locked me into the mobile site. I don't think that's the case but if you get different results or know a work-around (other than changing the user-agent), please post a comment.

I haven't been able to nail down a specific access pattern but between lvrj.com, www.lvrj.com and reviewjournal.com, I can usually get the full site on the iPad if I try.

To compare, here's the normal site and then the mobile site on the tablet screen. If I could choose, I'd just stick to the real site and have them focus their time on improving that, creating a better experience for all users.

vs.



Comments

Read archived comments (4 so far)
May 16, 2011 1:06 PM Posted by Martin

As an iPhone user, I hate sites that don't give you the option of the full site. The V Powered template usually allows users the option so I assume that the RJ has decided to bypass that. I almost prefer the old RJ mobile site. At least it was easy to find everything on the old site. Now, it seems that content disappears and is confusing to find. The only way to get the full site on an iPhone seems to be using Skyfire.

June 21, 2011 7:37 PM Posted by Chris Leslie

Hey guys, Chris here from @reviewjournal Mobile. I am hoping i can update you on some of the issues you noted above.

At the time of your review we were still in test mode of the RJ mobile site. Since then we have fixed issues with stories either not showing any text as well as dated stories being pulled in.

in addition, We've included a link back to the full site which can be found at the bottom of the homepage on the left hand site.

The "V" logo you see at the bottom is our developing partner Verve Wireless. We chose them to be our partner for many different reasons. The main one being that Verve has worked with many of News organizations like ours with the top ones being Denverpost.com and Chron.com

RJ mobile was officially launched on 6/1/11 and have been tweaking here and there to make sure we provide the best user experience we can on a mobile device.

We are still working on being able to correct the issues with Social Network links bypassing the mobile site and taking you to the main site as well as integrating a commenting platform.

Please feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions, suggestions, or just want to chat. I am around all the time. mainly Twitter & facebook.

twitter.com/chriskleslie
facebook.com/chriskleslie


Thanks, 8-)
-CL

June 21, 2011 10:04 PM Posted by Hunter

Hey Chris,

Good of you to respond - glad to here that things are being ironed out and happy to see movement on the technological front at the RJ.

Best of luck.

Hunter

June 29, 2011 5:07 PM Posted by Chris Leslie

Hunter, Thank you very much. I'm not sure if you had a chance to check it out yet but we just re-templated the site. Would be interested in what you think of the new design.

Thanks,

CL