Aria Rajasa’s Blog

Detik.com is the most famous news site in Indonesia (at least as far as I know). There go a long way to reach this point, from surviving the dot com boom too having hundreds of millions worth of commercial banners. They’re probably the first in their kind. But they’re certainly not putting all their effort in it. Here’s a few things that can get them better

1. Really Simple Syndicate (RSS) Feeds

Give us RSS feeds! this is the thing that I don’t get with most Indonesian’s site, most of them don’t provide RSS. RSS is a good way for viewers to keep updated with the site. It’s easy and unobtrusive, but very much underrated.

Maybe they’re worried that with RSS, people wouldn’t visit their site anymore. Well then that’s easily solved by having only the title and a bit of the news to catch our attention so that we would be drawn to the site. Also, RSS provide another place for them to put their ads. Simple? yes. Implemented in detik.com? No.

2. Newsletter

Okay, most of us aren’t that keen to RSS. Fine! then give them newsletter. So that we could get updates directly to our mails everyday. Heck, even Garfield.com have them. And again, just provide us with excerpt. It it’s interesting, then we’ll definitely click it.

3. Flexible Layout

This is the age of wide screens, people have screens from 13.3” to maybe 21” or maybe like 30”. You can even browse from your TV. So why do they persist with the same small width layout. Hey! if I had 30” wide screen monitor then I sure want to read my news widescreen.

4. Mobile Accessibility

Most cellphones these days can browse the internet, then why don’t they make it more comfortable for us to browse detik.com from our cellphones? Having 2 versions of the site like what Gmail mobile or studiohp mobile could really benefits them by increasing more loyal readers.

There are a lot more things that they can do like better and more relevant ads placements, better colors and contrast, better article arrangements (category, search), tags implementations, and many more.

Maybe having a competitor would make them consider these tips

written by Kuy