A new woodtv.com is coming Friday
November 5th, 2008 at 3:38 pm by Dave DeJonge under Inside WOOD TV8
Back in February of this year, we gave woodtv.com a facelift. Now, just 8 short months later, we’re giving you a whole new site.
For the past decade or so we’ve used WorldNow as the technolgy platform for our website. This Friday, we’re making the switch to Fox Interactive Media (FIM).
WOODTV.com is one of many sites owned by LIN TV that are making this move. You can read about it at Broadcasting & Cable and Media Week.
It’s an enormous change for us. In fact, we’re still very much in the middle of the transition.
Nearly all our main content has been duplicated on the new platform but we still have much more to do. You’ll see many more additions in the next few weeks.
In addition to the content you’ve seen and used before, we’ll begin adding more social networking and mapping features so you can get deeper into a story. One of the neat features of the site is a Flash-based, expandable video player.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll post updates on more new elements.
Come back on Friday and into next week and let us know what you think. Feel free to post below or email us directly at webcentral@woodtv.com.
Internet Director for WOODTV.com
Didn’t care for the facelift the last time. Don’t like the boring drabness of this either – of all the colors to choose from, why grey? Also slow loading.
I don’t really care for it. Things are harder to find. It was nice before to come in to a fast page, all the headlines were right there. I like the added features, but they should come from links-not be the main page.
I don’t like it . . . at all! WOOD weather used to be my home page . . . everything I needed was right there. Now when I go to it & it refreshes, it takes me back to the daily thing . . . when before, I got current, daily, 5 day, & abbreviated forecast . . . all on the same page. Take it back to where it was . . . PLEASE!!!
I see a lot of the negative comments have been removed. This site sucks, I will not be returning!!!
Well I’m not sure exactly what you guys are talking about. This site loaded just as quickly as it did with the old site and I’m on a slower 1.5 mbps connection. Looks like there was some loading errors that popped up on the bottom of the browser, which is usually the case with new website launches. All in all I think the new layout is easy to navigate and has important updates and info where it needs to be. Change is good but choose better colors next time.
I don’t like it. It isn’t very user friendly. However, I will give it a couple of weeks. I may get used to it or I may not and just use weather.com
After a little recon and exploring, I like the new look of your website. Once I learn my way around it will be even better. It is a great plus now that the program you are using is compatible with my computer. I now can watch the news and weather videos. Being stationed a thousand miles from home, the videos are a very welcome addition. Good work, my man.
I do not care for it. I now have to do more mouse clicks to get the same info. The old page just had more one click links to everything. Not good for the old people like me.
There’s an old saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The old NEWS 8 site was fine the way it was. The new site is not easy to use. It takes TOO many clicks to find what I’m looking for. Do everyone that is a regular visitor of this site, CHANGE IT BACK. Don’t follow the crowd just to be in line to jump off the bridge.
The new site is so slow that it makes the license bureau seem speedy. Waiting for a page to load feels like you should be waiting for your number to be called.
I agree with Jen, and too long to load. Also, too much duplication. Thanks
HATE IT !!!!!
Well, I can’t say that I’m real fond of the new site. One of the main reason I came to this site was to read local news, which either doesn’t exist or is hidden. Your a local station so it would be nice to focus on local news.
I also agree with others that the site loads very, very slow, especially the first time you visit it.
I also didn’t care for the make over back in February and I really dis-like this make over even more. I’ll give it a try for a while but if I don’t see some major improvements soon I will most likely have to go somewhere else to get my local news.
I really hope the Powers That Be take all of these comments seriously, it’s obvious most people don’t care for the new look.
This website took 15 minutes to load up. I don’t care for all the videos, if I wanted to watch something I’d turn on the TV. I am now forced to go to a lesser worthy local news WZZM 13 website to get my news. Please take my comments seriously, most people are not liking the changes.
You’ve probably heard this from others. Thanks for getting rid of Windows Media and going to a flash player. The RSS feeds are much nicer and easier to get to. Also… take ‘beta’ off the logo. It’s become a web cliche.
Stop removing negative comments! You made a big mistake, asked for public opinion and then censor them? Wow, what a crappy news organization!!
The new site sucks, go back to the old one. Tell LIN TV to stop screwing people and charging a premium to cable & satellite companies to view a FREE HD signal!
Oh and this changeover wouldn’t have been HALF as bad if it wasn’t so damn slow. Did you do ANY stress testing before switching? Did ANYBODY check load times? Did you contact ANYONE who knows anything about web design and how to make pages load fast enough to keep the end use satisfied? Ugh, flip the dns switch back to the old site please.
NO GOOD, TOO HARD TO NAVIGATE, NEED TO LIST THE HEADLINES LIKE BEFORE, WAY TOO SCATTERED. THE OLD WAS FINE WHY MESS WITH IT? CHANGE IS NOT BETTER!
I don’t care for the new site. I don’t like the videos, I will watch TV for that. I want to read the news. I am switching to another local news site.
Are there any archived stories? If so, where do we find them?
Where is the local news?
You will notice that my question of whether LIN was making WOODtv do this or whether it was something they did of their own accord was not answered. I take that to mean that they had no choice. What this means dear friends, is that none of your feedback matters…nobody is allowed to care.
As far as the site being slow, that will rectify itself once the servers are all straightened out. Provided you are not on dialup, that is. If you are on dialup, you will notice a dramatic increase in timeouts and failed page loads because of the increased bandwidth these hideously bloated pages use.
It’s RRREEEEAAAAALLLLLL SLOW. I’ll switch to WZZM.com until it gets better or faster until then Julia will be the one I’m watching instead of Sue He Haw. Man she really needs to retire.
After all of these comments someone should lose their job for failing so bad at getting it right.
I don’t like it at all!! Very slow. Hard to find anything. The old site was much better and you could find everything on one page quickly. New site has to many pages with little info on each page. Maybe if WOODtv was going to provide more stories and info on each page in each area the change might be needed. BRING BACK THE OLD SITE!!
WAYYYY too busy. Adding wzzm.com as my local news page. The old page was just fine. Replacing it was a complete waste.
I HATE This new layout! It’s not slow for me at all. I just think it’s boring. The weather sucks and I don’t see any local news.
BLAH!
Everyone you are just WASTING your time , TV8 doesnt care about anything you or what anyone says they arent going to change this tHing back. Infact its so bad my IP removed them from the home page today , Now they use wzzm for weather and news. As for local news , they WILL NOT I repeat WILL NOT report on most local news and if they do they either censor it or they do creative jornalism to make it sound worse then it actually is. I will bet they will pull this post even though I hope hundreds read it and decide to make TV13 the number one station in west michigan as they truely deserve to be.
[...] Our new site design is up and running. If you missed the advance notice, you can read about the background of this change here. [...]
I started checking woodtv after I moved to Maryland because I still like to see whats happening back home… and I found woodtv.com was the quickest way to do that. I didn’t like wzzm because it always asked for gender and birthdate and stuff… but I’ll enter the info everytime I visit if I have to… this is awful! The most imporant thing/person in our nation changed earlier this week… but that doesn’t mean everything has to change… some things are better left alone.
Progress is always change. Change is not always progress. This makeover is drab grey and boring. Am strongly thinking of following the others in ditching this site and going to WZZM.
Why would any organization that calls itself “professional” even consider introducing something that isn’t finished. Get it done and then present it.
Failing grade for being incomplete.
this new site sucks. does anybody out there know the http for wzzm? please go back to the old or we will be changing..
I like the new look, but it is a little bland. It seems washed out.
HOWEVER, I like the layout and the fact that I don’t have to sort through a bunch of advertising and junkware to get to the news. It’s right there when it lods. And I didn’t notice a lag in loading the page. I prefer your current layout over ZZM, and have added it to my homepage over the other guys.
Keep up the good work!
Too bad so many of the people on here are so uncivilized. I’d register their ISP’s and ban ‘em if they can’t be civil.
I always loved your site before. Easy to navigate!! I am with the others. Sorry but I think I will be switching too……
What happened to your newsroom web cam.always enjoyed seeing that.
I wish you would follow the old saying..”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”. I can’t get your new site. I get a page saying “Sorrym the page requested cannot be found!”.
That’s it, no load!! I hate change!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish you would follow the old saying..”If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”. I can’t get your new site. I get a page saying “Sorry, the page requested cannot be found!”.
That’s it, no load!! I hate change!!!!!!!!!!!!
I used to be able to see the larger version of the Holland Spyglass webcam, now its just the little window. Is the larger version coming back?
Thank’s for MORE advertisments on your main page, I wasn’t inundated enough with them! will we need to watch a one minute commercial now to see a thirty second video?
Go back to the old page! at least there weren’t EIGHT adverts on that main page, oh yeah? where’s the news?
Follow the crowd! follow the crowd!! there’s MORE space for adverts guys! quick!!!
BREAKING NEWS!!!! I WANT THE NEWS! not more adverts!
[...] > Your input on the new website helps > A new website is coming Friday [...]
REALLY DO NOT LIKE THE NEW LAYOUT. OLD SITE WAS EASIER TO GO THROUGH AND VIEW ALL THE NEWS.. HAVE A HARD TIME LOADING UP ON THIS NEW SITE.
Do not like this new format at all. There aren’t enough local headlines to keep me interested enough to stick around and I find the weather area difficult to naviage.
Unfortunately, this has gone from being my favorite West Michigan news site to the least favorite. I’m going to remove woodtv.com from my bookmarks, for now. Perhaps I’ll be back in a few months to see if you’ve changed formats (again).
Not impressed. Yahoo’s my home page, but for the last 3 days, my Wood TV8 spot has shown “no new news stories in the last 5 days.” Go this site, tons of news. What’s up with that? This is my main source of news right now and I’m feeling SO left out. Boo to the new format.
Also, miss the radar that automatically showed up on the top of the weather page, instead of scrolling halfway down the page to find it. This new format is much lower quality. Hope you take all these suggestions into consideration instead of just letting them sit here, otherwise you may lose a lot of what used to be faithful viewers.
Another thing, WHO CARES about other news posted by random people. I used to rely on Wood’s site for what I thought was reliable information, now I have to weed through “Big purse” and “Taylor and Kate at Disney World” to find out what’s going on in West Michigan. This is a HUGE step backwards for WOOD. Must suck to be the person who decided to go with the new format.
Everytime I punch on some news from your website I get Sorry we are unable to reach this website. I miss my news!
I am really not liking your website change. I visit the topix forums, and everytime I click a topic, then click the link to the story the forum is about, it’s not able to find the original story. EXTREMELY ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!
You also said you were going to have more articles that people could go and read under local, but the thing is, you only have like 10 articles. What happened to being able to go and read the past 20 articles or more. I am not able to get online everyday, and I like to be able to go back and look to see what I missed, especially if I was not able to get online all weekend. I am really disappointed with the new site. You have a lot of VERY unhappy viewers.
CANT EVEN GET THE LOGO ON MY TABS.CHANGE BACK TO THE OLD WEBSITE.
Its 12/18/08 and the site is still very slow, some pages never load or you get a “sorry this page could not be found” This site is still not what I expect after more than a month in operation. I much prefer the old site, it was fast and operated much better than the current one