Instead of visiting jang.com.pk you now just visit jang.com.pk/jang because the front page is useless. That is exactly my point. But you found a good way to avoid the front page altogether and I am sure others will appreciate the suggestion. I wish avoiding junk on TV were just as easy.

But it begs the question: what is the point of having a front page in the first place if all readers are skipping it? It defies all common sense.

I would not enjoy my morning newspaper if its front page was full of ads and the actual news was on the second page. Jang’s front page is even worse. A good bit of my time and bandwidth are wasted on loading a really big multimedia page full of ads.

But what’s worse is that there is no easy way to bookmark the Taza Tareen page either. This is because http://jang.com.pk/jang redirects to http://jang.com.pk/jang/mar2010-daily/11-03-2010/index.html which makes no sense in bookmarking. If you could have a look at their Google Analytics, I am certain you would notice that most people end up coming to jang.com.pk and then click on through to the next page. How annoying for the poor readers!

The inside pages of the Jang website are also rife with their own set of problems but that criticism is for another day.

I wonder if a good online-only newspaper from Pakistan would be able to generate decent revenue. Of course, they would have to have way better design sense than Dawn, Jang etc. :)

I like this post. My ad firm designs a lot of websites, but we’ve never approached a news website. But Earthwalkers is launching soon. I’ll keep you updated. =)