What to do when you’re just fed up waiting for something to happen? Best thing is to take matters into your own hands! And that’s what fellow blogger Mustapha did while waiting for the Daily Star IT people to renovate their website.
Few days ago Mustapha launched the Better Daily Star Project (BDSP), a website that he built on his own using the WordPress CMS and a theme to fit the content (newspaper style). The new version created a buzz on twitter the day it was published, and while a lot of people welcomed what he did and admitted it is way better than the current DS website, others just accused him of doing an illegal work (copying the articles) and to which he replied by writing this FAQ page inside the project’s blog.
But isn’t this Illegal?Probably. But I’m not making any money out of it (in fact, I’m paying some in effort and hosting fees), and I promise that as soon as they do something about their site, I’ll gladly bow out. Besides, it will cost them more to sue me than to actually fix their site and let me off their back.
And in the same page, he stated that it isn’t hard at all for the DS staff to upgrade their existing website, at least the new version didn’t take a lot of his time.
Why am I doing it. What’s the point?Well, I am trying to say this: If one guy (yours humbly) can use freely available opensource software (wordpress if you must know) to create this alternative, arguably better website in two weeks, why can’t a newspaper with an actual IT department do it? In other words, I’m shooting down the argument that it would be too expensive to do. Listen to me well: They’re just being lazy.
Finally, here’s how Mustapha’s version of his favorite newpaper looks like, let’s see how much time will it take until the Daily Star website gets a real upgrade!
Great initiative by beirut spring … yet another proof of the solutions that open source can offer, hats off to him for doing this.
I can’t believe ppl where actually attacking him instead of using his experience and hiring him maybe to migrate to a new version !
after a quick search on who the hell could be opposing this.. didn’t take much to figure it out … shame ! http://samerkaram.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Nov09_BIG.gif
I say good on him! I completely agree with him! “They’re just being lazy”, Honestly this is the best thing that’s happened to the DailyStar. It was getting tired. I just hope this helps in making those “professionals” at the IT department move quick to get a “new” design.
As usual it is a fight for power 😉
And I am just speculating here 😛 The IT crew at DS *PROBABLY* wanted to take a bigger credit than necessary for something that could have been done in the simplest of ways. Instead of being smart enough to understand that coming up with CREATIVE SOLUTIONS (even if simple) is way more intelligent than reinventing the wheel (and not a very round one either) they thought that it was actually the number of hours spent doing the work that counts. Hence all the delays at their end, I suppose (apparently they are working on revamping the site; but it doesn’t seem to ever see the light).
Management and decision-makers hardly understand how a website operates and they simply believe that it took an amazingly long time to finish the job (and everyone claps for the geniuses who managed such a tough victory). the delays may also come from the management who were led to think that such a revamping may be too costly. They may not even have heard of open source and/or understanding what it means in the world of new media!
Mustapha simply told them it can be done in a few hours; and he backed it up with an actual implementation, which let’s face it, rocks! Big shout out for PROACTIVE CREATIVE PEOPLE out there! He’s a reader who cares and who actually got involved to better an existing project WITHOUT any FINANCIAL GAIN or COMPENSATION. I personally am a reader who just stopped checking the site altogether (booh me :P) lol 😉
Thank you Rami for featuring the Better Daily Star :). Now for a few points:
-Thanks to the commentators who apparently support the project wholeheartedly. I’m overwhelmed.
-Mireille, I wouldn’t have minded it if Samer had disclosed this -*cough* bogus- association with the DS, but he waged a war on the project in twitter on morale grounds. That’s a shame.
-Khalad, thanks for reading BDSP every day. I appreciate it.
-Rouba: Great analysis, but it’s missing a small piece that implicates management in more ways that your theory suggests:
It’s a fact that many newspapers hate the internet because it prevents people from buying the “real” thing. There could very well be a conscious decision from management to keep the website as the maze that it is for the simple reason of turning off readers from the website and incentivize them to buy the hard copy.
Needless to say, that would be a very short sighted approach that is missing out on a great opportunity: The many readers outside Lebanon who love the DS, and english speakers the world over.
wow this is wayyy better. thanks