MLive.com announced some major changes to the AnnArbor.com experiment that began with such promise just four years ago. The major changes is that after Sept. 11 it will no longer exist. It is being folded into the MLive.com group of companies and that the former news print version is reverting to the former Ann Arbor News masthead.
Good luck with that.
And don't miss the growing list of comments under the story, at least the ones that haven't been deleted because of how negative they are. Here's just one sample of the 91 posted so far:
"Next to AnnArbor.com, the software that drives MLive and the presentation is the worst. Also, using the name "Ann Arbor News" is a giveaway that you think WAY too much of yourselves.You don't deserve to use that moniker, especially since you killed it in the first place."
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I've always hated MLive because it robs all its newspapers of the chance to have decent online versions. I think each should be able to develop an online version that suits its local community. Instead they're ball-and-chained to this genericizing behind-the-times supersite. I'll just continue to daydream, I guess, of what the Ann Arbor News (the paper) could have become online.
So what happens to the acorn logo?
Here is a nice summary from a local (Ypsilanti) blogger:
http://markmaynard.com/2013/09/my-thoughts-on-the-death-of-annarbor-com/
Am I wrong or is one "winner" in what has become the MLive debacle one Andy Heller? As I understand it, Mr. Heller is now syndicated throughout the chain of printed papers. Pre-MLive he could only dream of such exposure, or has he always been published in other papers besides the FJ? One also wonders if, through combined circulation, his columns now reach more Michiganders than any other local or in-state columnist, Mitch Albom included. Of course, Tim Skubick also is part of the MLive columnist line-up so there's that. Though I like Mr. Skubick's show, calling his breezy written work "columns" may be a stretch - akin tc referring to Albom's books as "postcards."
What does this say about former FJ editor Tony Dearing's legacy there? Not much positive that I can see.
I've had a couple more comments recently that referred to Tony Dearing. The above is the only one I'm publishing because it asks a legit question without personally attacking the man. I'm no fan of Mr. Dearing as an editor or leader, but I don't blame him for taking full advantage of a company that doesn't measure results, but only whether you are loyal. Feel free to comment but leave the anonymous personal attacks out.
Having slipped the surly bonds of Booth more than two decades ago, I hope it is not too untoward to wonder, as an outsider, what it says about the leadership that they have learned so much more about their communities from this AnnArbor.com experiment and that their audience likes local news. So does that mean, up until AnnArbor.com, these leaders didn't know these things? Which naturally leads me to ask how good a leader is to have not known this for the previous decades. OK ...
My point exactly Bob. You just said it much quicker than I did.
Regarding Andy Heller, he's now a freelancer. His day job is at the PR firm Lembert Edwards & Associates in Detroit.
"The expirement is successful. Now, kill the mouse."
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