Midland Daily News' new web site design (bottom) has received very negative reviews from regular and out-of-state readers.

The Midland Daily News' web site launched a highly anticipated redesign last Tuesday. Editor Jack Telfer had announced the redesign days earlier in an editorial column. Featuring a brand new look, the new design features a top navigational menu instead of the left-horizontal standard, more prominently displayed AP and national headlines, and more advertisements.

Various report indicate that the company behind the newspaper's redesign is townnews365.com. Those reports have not been independently verified by The Tridge. On townnews365.com's web site, they say "revenue is job 1" and explain their online business plan for newspaper involves increase advertisement and online classifieds while sacrificing news content.

The redesign drew a mostly negative reaction from users, particularly regular users and out-of-state readers. Comments on Telfer's announcement complained about the newspaper charging for online content à la Wall Street Journal.

"Horrible," said one comment on the Midland Daily News web site. "Just another reason to turn to the Saginaw News to find out what is going on in Midland - they do a better job anyway. The MDN website was one of the worst online papers before, now it is definitely the worst."

The brunt of the backlash was voiced on the newspapers online forums, where an overwhelming majority of the posters disliked the new design.

William Bohnow, a Midland resident and frequent forum poster displayed his displeasure with the site. "At this point, I have to agree... it fairly well sucks ... and ... the "too cluttered" doesn't even halfway describe it. The older format was straight forward with easily understandable shortcuts to the various sections of the paper. This new design seems to be a hodgepodge."

Those comments were echoed by another regular forum poster, NightOwl. "They're going to lose website visitors, causing a drop-off in ad impressions, causing a drop in the CPM (cost per thousand), leading ultimately to [a decrease in] revenue from the site. And very few people are going to pay five dollars a month for a PDF of the newspaper sent to their e-mail. This isn't the NYT, WSJ or other large [Times] -- it's a local paper. Get real."

Midland Daily News New Media Editor Beth Bellor refused comment. It is unknown whether or not the newspaper will seek to reexamine the redesign after the community backlash.

On the web: Midland Daily News