We disabled Google AMP at Tribune Publishing(kurtgessler.medium.com)
kurtgessler.medium.com
We disabled Google AMP at Tribune Publishing
https://kurtgessler.medium.com/what-happened-when-we-disabled-google-amp-at-tribune-publishing-2fa65a2f2a40
109 comments
My news site dumped AMP late last year also. We were doing a replatform and just didn't carry it over. Didn't see any appreciable changes in traffic or user behavior.
Problem with turning off AMP, it’s generally replaced with a page with even more ads, so the user suffers in that aspect.
Ads themselves aren't the core problem. It's the 10's of megabytes of superfluous javascript you're expected to download to read content with primarily text presentation. Put the marketing departments on the ark ship along with the telephone sanitizers and we'll all be better off.
> Put the marketing departments on the ark ship along with the telephone sanitizers and we'll all be better off.
... but we'll still have nice-looking hair :)
... but we'll still have nice-looking hair :)
You don't just hit the 'reader' button/mode in your browser?
I block most javascript by default for a nicer 90's style web experience but there are times when I'm using a browser without addons or reader mode available. This is far faster than the supposed streamlining that AMP was claimed to provide. The most hostile web sites I encounter are the AMP pages on the Google assistant news feed.
But a lot of that JS is for ads and tracking/analytics, the latter of which also ties into ads and marketing.
AMP never limited you from doing all that; it's just the method that is tweaked.
In my experience if a publisher chooses to make their main website a trash fire, their AMP version is too.
Nothing stopping a publisher doing their website right. Even with advertising: manage inventory first-party, don't track users off-site, base your ads on content.
In my experience if a publisher chooses to make their main website a trash fire, their AMP version is too.
Nothing stopping a publisher doing their website right. Even with advertising: manage inventory first-party, don't track users off-site, base your ads on content.
That’s not true. The specification didn’t allow docked video ads that take up 50% of the space on the page.
But if you do all that right, then what benefit does AMP serve?
To the user? Absolutely none. You can make better sites without it.
To the publisher? Originally, some twisted incentive that you'd rank higher on mobile and then globally but IIRC this no longer exists and OG data is also used. AMP is a component library too now so I guess that could simplify development if they couldn't use anything else, because HTML is so hard.
To Google? A funnel away from in-house and management at larger publishers, and ideally into one of their AMP-supported models. AML is "open" now but it's still Google, innit.
To the publisher? Originally, some twisted incentive that you'd rank higher on mobile and then globally but IIRC this no longer exists and OG data is also used. AMP is a component library too now so I guess that could simplify development if they couldn't use anything else, because HTML is so hard.
To Google? A funnel away from in-house and management at larger publishers, and ideally into one of their AMP-supported models. AML is "open" now but it's still Google, innit.
Google can load an amp page instantly from a search result page since they can cache the data and pre-render before you click. No publisher can do that with their non-amp pages.
Problem is that adtech companies are extracting all the value from the news market
There seems to be a huge gap between what ad buyers pay, and what publishers receive (one study showed The Guardian got as little at 10c for each $ spent) so publishers end up adding nore ads to try to compensate
There seems to be a huge gap between what ad buyers pay, and what publishers receive (one study showed The Guardian got as little at 10c for each $ spent) so publishers end up adding nore ads to try to compensate
The Guardian manages [at least some of their inventory] first-party. Their products and rates are refreshingly transparent.
https://advertising.theguardian.com/
They may well use backup agencies for selling unfilled slots.
https://advertising.theguardian.com/
They may well use backup agencies for selling unfilled slots.
This is probably The Guardian study I was thinking of https://the-media-leader.com/where-did-the-money-go-guardian...
Says in the worst cases they only saw 30% of the revenue
Recent studies have shown even worse results for other publishers https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-much-publisher-revenue-...
Says in the worst cases they only saw 30% of the revenue
Recent studies have shown even worse results for other publishers https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/how-much-publisher-revenue-...
It says that's the worst case for programmatic buys.
I don't know their business, but I suspect most of their big money ads are direct sales and they pocket the lot. It'd be interesting to break down their income by source.
I don't know their business, but I suspect most of their big money ads are direct sales and they pocket the lot. It'd be interesting to break down their income by source.
Speaking of AMP and ads, fun fact! If you block ads, AMP purposely ads a few second delay to load all AMP pages. So in your scenario, the winning option is to install an ad blocker and avoid all AMP pages. :)
[citation needed]
And this is not a swipe. This really does need a citation. It's believable, but only just.
And this is not a swipe. This really does need a citation. It's believable, but only just.
My own experience with load times as a user who blocks tons of scripts, and countless people citing it over the years. I've responded to them a bunch on HN, but here is one from 2018.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16733667
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16733667
Ads pay for the content.
Do you think that journalists just work for free?
Do you think that journalists just work for free?
> Do you think that journalists just work for free?
Can you please edit swipes out of your comments to HN? We're trying for a different sort of forum here, as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Can you please edit swipes out of your comments to HN? We're trying for a different sort of forum here, as described at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I don’t run an ad blocker for that reason. But there’s a limit to what is reasonable: https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-timothy-...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-student-voting-...
Journalist here: Yes I do think that journalists often work for free. Many, many journalists work for free until they "make it". It's sadly such a competitive field that it's the only way to get paid work down the line.
Regardless though, the most-critical local reporting I know of is funded without advertisement or paywalls. Both newsroom and freelance journalism funding happens through grants. Funny enough, the orgs that I'm never able to get freelance work through are orgs that have paywalls and significant ads. Lots of gatekeeping when you have advertisers to appease.
Regardless though, the most-critical local reporting I know of is funded without advertisement or paywalls. Both newsroom and freelance journalism funding happens through grants. Funny enough, the orgs that I'm never able to get freelance work through are orgs that have paywalls and significant ads. Lots of gatekeeping when you have advertisers to appease.
I block ads and subscribe to what I consume regularly, including journalism. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive. ;)
Ads aren’t bad. They’re a way to get content without needing to exchange money for it.
The user suffer more when the content goes away.
The user suffer more when the content goes away.
Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy. Ads force people to pay with their attention span, which seems to have serious consequences - the user is suffering from attention deficit far more than an imagined lack of content.
Well if money isn’t exchanged for the service of content (in some way), the content eventually goes away. The lack of content stops being imaginary.
Cool. Let me pay $20/month for an ad-free Internet (not just one site). I already have Youtube Premium.
That content is only ever produced out of monetary motivations is the biggest lie capitalism has sold us.
> Exchanging money for goods and services is the entire basis of the economy.
Sounds like advertising meets that description.
It's a transaction of value - potential future customers via the service of advertising.
Sounds like advertising meets that description.
It's a transaction of value - potential future customers via the service of advertising.
Sounds like it doesn't and you missed the point.
There are two parties that matter: the reader and the website.
Instead of addressing that you introduced a third party, which works for the website as a service. Correct, but irrelevant.
Instead of addressing that you introduced a third party, which works for the website as a service. Correct, but irrelevant.
It does not. Attention is a limited good, not capital. Capital is capital.
You've changed your definition.
Advertising is a service, it is fundamentally no different than any other service. We may find it annoying or distasteful, but it is a natural good from natural actors in a capitalist system.
Advertising is a service, it is fundamentally no different than any other service. We may find it annoying or distasteful, but it is a natural good from natural actors in a capitalist system.
Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system. What a ridiculous idea. Advertising is a service, it should be paid for with capital, not used as a subsidy or alternate form of payment.
> Subsidizing products with your attention span is not a natural thing in a capitalist system
You're looking at the wrong thing as capital and the wrong thing as the service.
The service is customer sourcing and the capital is literally capital.
It is a very natural capitalist creation, self-evidently so.
You're looking at the wrong thing as capital and the wrong thing as the service.
The service is customer sourcing and the capital is literally capital.
It is a very natural capitalist creation, self-evidently so.
I don't think I am. Internet users are not being fairly compensated for their data and unless you block the entire Facebook and Instagram namespaces, they track you whether or not you have consented.
The platforms are acting like feudal landlords, not capitalists.
The platforms are acting like feudal landlords, not capitalists.
First, I think you've simply identified a key feature of capitalism: exploitation of a resource.
Second, the market has spoken. Some of us feel we're being exploited by having our data harvested for the transaction of advertising, but most do not.
Second, the market has spoken. Some of us feel we're being exploited by having our data harvested for the transaction of advertising, but most do not.
So is attention a resource or a capital equivalent? Doesn't seem like you've made up your mind on that.
> Some of us feel we're being exploited by having our data harvested for the transaction of advertising, but most do not.
Since FB and Google have monopolies in ppc marketing, I'm not sure how you'd reach this conclusion. The only way to opt out is to completely block them on your networks, there is no competing option.
> Some of us feel we're being exploited by having our data harvested for the transaction of advertising, but most do not.
Since FB and Google have monopolies in ppc marketing, I'm not sure how you'd reach this conclusion. The only way to opt out is to completely block them on your networks, there is no competing option.
You are correct overall that they are a legitimate way to trade for something with your attention but their application is so abused now. The push-back is worthwhile.
Ads don't have to be bad, but most are for a variety of reasons... jarring graphics, animation, unrelated to the content. If a news organization is showing a lot of junky ads then I'm going to assume it is a failing news organization.
I get your argument, but more ads mean more intrusive JS and longer load times, which make the user experience worse. But yes, of course one needs to weigh these two sides. Free content needs to be monetized.
And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Seems like content creators didnt even get any of the promised benefits out of it.
And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that. Seems like content creators didnt even get any of the promised benefits out of it.
> And AMP is a downside for everyone, i think we can agree on that.
Wait, what? At the time it was introduced, it was literally the only counterbalance to the incentives of adding as many ads to your site as possible. Google has better ways of penalizing bad practices now, but that wasn't the case 7 years ago.
Wait, what? At the time it was introduced, it was literally the only counterbalance to the incentives of adding as many ads to your site as possible. Google has better ways of penalizing bad practices now, but that wasn't the case 7 years ago.
There's a German news site (I think Zeit?) that has an interesting approach. When you try to access the site, it gives you an explicit choice (between two buttons) between the site with ads or subscribing to the site.
I respect being given a conscious choice up front.
NPR used to do something similar for GDPR — either accept their cookies or view the site content in plain text.
(edit: probably not in line with GDPR but heyho)
NPR used to do something similar for GDPR — either accept their cookies or view the site content in plain text.
(edit: probably not in line with GDPR but heyho)
NPR's plaintext site is one of the best news sites ever.
Obviously, if you visit a news article and select to be redirected to plaintext, they don't redirect you to that article on the plaintext page for that article, but to the homepage, which makes it inconvenient in the hopes you won't select that option again. But once you see where to insert the article ID, it's good.
Obviously, if you visit a news article and select to be redirected to plaintext, they don't redirect you to that article on the plaintext page for that article, but to the homepage, which makes it inconvenient in the hopes you won't select that option again. But once you see where to insert the article ID, it's good.
Ads aren't, generally. Targeted advertising, however, is trash and needs to go away.
When I joined Talking Points Memo, AMP was the new "hot" thing. I fought hard to stop us from jumping on that train and I'm glad I did.
The whole point of the Core Web Vitals project was to provide a neutral measure of "quality" that could replace the search rankings boost that AMP got, so I'm not surprised. I just wish they did something about giant interstitials as well
Sarcasm aside,I feel like AMP was the first time Google violated their promise to users, and to their own ecosystem. "Make the web fast" was Google's way of keeping up with native performance in iOS's walled garden, before Android came into its own. Obviously this same strategy is important for Workspace's competitiveness against Office, pre MS365.
But with AMP, Google's promise mutated into something which had no exchange in value: Google said, "We'll serve your content, we'll make it fast. You don't even need to sustain the traffic, we'll do that for you. It's the ultimate fast."
But then, Google turned around and cost-extracted that same market into semi-permanent chaos. This promise to users ("we both win when the web is fast") was borrowed and manipulated to Google's benefit and the publisher's detriment, and, in essence, became, "look at me; I am the [publisher] now. Here are your GA stats for the traffic we decided to send you today for your content."
I'm not even sure as a user that I care about AMP. So what, articles were faster for awhile. You could have accomplished the same thing for almost no money with a desktop version of Google Reader, but here we are.
But with AMP, Google's promise mutated into something which had no exchange in value: Google said, "We'll serve your content, we'll make it fast. You don't even need to sustain the traffic, we'll do that for you. It's the ultimate fast."
But then, Google turned around and cost-extracted that same market into semi-permanent chaos. This promise to users ("we both win when the web is fast") was borrowed and manipulated to Google's benefit and the publisher's detriment, and, in essence, became, "look at me; I am the [publisher] now. Here are your GA stats for the traffic we decided to send you today for your content."
I'm not even sure as a user that I care about AMP. So what, articles were faster for awhile. You could have accomplished the same thing for almost no money with a desktop version of Google Reader, but here we are.
I really wanted AMP to be to HTML/CSS what asm.js was to Javascript, a subset with better performance.
What other alternatives are there? The Gemini project seems too barebones and requires its own browser.
What other alternatives are there? The Gemini project seems too barebones and requires its own browser.
> What other alternatives are there?
Correctly design your website.
Website obesity is a human problem, not a technical one. If asm.js solved a technical problem, AMP is basically just a very strict and unavoidable linter.
Correctly design your website.
Website obesity is a human problem, not a technical one. If asm.js solved a technical problem, AMP is basically just a very strict and unavoidable linter.
> What other alternatives are there?
1. Fantastic content. If you have that pretty much nothing else matters.
2. Hand-tuned CSS and HTML
1. Fantastic content. If you have that pretty much nothing else matters.
2. Hand-tuned CSS and HTML
Also, a lot of AMP isn't even bad. You can self-host the js for it, follow the spec and restrictions, etc, and still get all the speed upsides except for the js being cached from Google.
I've done this on many personal websites and it is a easy brainless way to get a fast simple site.
I've done this on many personal websites and it is a easy brainless way to get a fast simple site.
The kind of people who publish on Gemini are the kind who already made their website fast.
The way I see it, Google just need to penalise bloated websites far more harshly. There's no real technical challenge here - we already have fast browsers. The challenge is one of incentives.
The way I see it, Google just need to penalise bloated websites far more harshly. There's no real technical challenge here - we already have fast browsers. The challenge is one of incentives.
I actually kind of liked AMP because it regularly circumvented paywalls and those fucking annoying newsletter popups.
Unfortunately it hijacked scrolling, navigation and search which more than made up for the lack of annoying newsletter popups.
I personally use the Amplosion plug-in for Safari on iOS which nukes AMP pages from orbit transparently, substituting their standard variant. [1]
[1] https://amplosion.app
I personally use the Amplosion plug-in for Safari on iOS which nukes AMP pages from orbit transparently, substituting their standard variant. [1]
[1] https://amplosion.app
Makes sense. That must have been the "loss of control over user experience" that publishers complained about.
I liked it because it dangled the possibility of author signatures on content, via RealURL.
I use archive dot org and archive dot is for bypassing paywall. The dot org one works best usually in sites with JavaScript.
I had forgotten that AMP was still a think after installing the AMP to HTML extension for Chrome. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirect-amp-to-ht...
I thought that Google was retiring AMP anyways?
Sort of. They removed the only real reason people used it...
"AMP will no longer be necessary for stories to be featured in Top Stories on mobile; it will be open to any page"
But they didn't announce anything about retiring it. It's still there if you want it for some other reason.
"AMP will no longer be necessary for stories to be featured in Top Stories on mobile; it will be open to any page"
But they didn't announce anything about retiring it. It's still there if you want it for some other reason.
The mobile web version they replaced amp with is awful:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-student-voting-...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-timothy-...
Interstitial pay walls, auto playing video ads that are pinned to the top, useless read more button, horrible tabula ads. It’s a total mess.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-timothy-...
Interstitial pay walls, auto playing video ads that are pinned to the top, useless read more button, horrible tabula ads. It’s a total mess.
Weird that giving google all your traffic didn't end up boosting your own bottom line /s
Great decision, especially since AMP no longer plays a privileged role in search results.
Good riddance. AMP pages loaded noticeably more slowly for me and were typically broken when they finally painted.
Hear, hear!
[deleted]
Google already controls the most important browser and the biggest search engine. AMP let them also run javascript on every AMP site, ability to de facto become for host for most AMP users and a justification for dictating what your site did + excuse for manipulating search results. The web would have begun to turn into a closed system like Facebook. Fortunately Google did not have the strength to complete their design.
> Fortunately Google did not have the strength to complete their design.
Google was telling from the start that AMP was only a temporary solution, and that the end-goal of AMP is to disappear.
Google was telling from the start that AMP was only a temporary solution, and that the end-goal of AMP is to disappear.
Corporate marketing says lots of things which they don’t mean. Google actually required you to use AMP to get the best results placement and they took many years to implement solution-neutral alternatives which would have been easier to do in the first place. It’s really hard to believe they seriously intended to spend all of that extra developer time and strong-arm publishers on a temporary measure.
Google always treated AMP as permanent, even going as far as to introduce AMP Emails*, and slowing down non-AMP javascript content. It was only because of legal exposure created by the slowdown that they were forced to deemphasize AMP.
* Nothing says 'temporary' more than introducing a tech to a form of communication which is expected to remain readable basically forever.
* Nothing says 'temporary' more than introducing a tech to a form of communication which is expected to remain readable basically forever.
[deleted]
Tribune Publishing's websites are hot garbage and a perfect example of why we need AMP in the first place.
Whatevs with respect to Tribune (whom I've never heard of). You may not like their message but AMP is the messenger here and it is Minerva's kid brother that flunked school and took up delivering class A drugs on their BMX.
This article is about dumping AMP - discuss! I found the medium article extremely well written with loads of stats to back up assertions. It is also mercifully short. That is exactly what I want to see.
For me AMP is an example of "insidious" - it looks shiny ("my precious") but it will suck the life out of you eventually. AMP, fundamentally puts your content distribution in the hands of a third party (G) that can change it at will and that breaks the promise of the web and ensures that you will have your testes tickled at first and then twisted off.
AMP is not simply a CDN - it doesn't simply regurgitate your stuff faster. It changes it and does things to it and also gathers as much data as it wishes, from your customers. My Precious ...
Oh look: I've managed to conflate some fictional seriously damaged goods from Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings with what Google will do to you.
Silly me.
This article is about dumping AMP - discuss! I found the medium article extremely well written with loads of stats to back up assertions. It is also mercifully short. That is exactly what I want to see.
For me AMP is an example of "insidious" - it looks shiny ("my precious") but it will suck the life out of you eventually. AMP, fundamentally puts your content distribution in the hands of a third party (G) that can change it at will and that breaks the promise of the web and ensures that you will have your testes tickled at first and then twisted off.
AMP is not simply a CDN - it doesn't simply regurgitate your stuff faster. It changes it and does things to it and also gathers as much data as it wishes, from your customers. My Precious ...
Oh look: I've managed to conflate some fictional seriously damaged goods from Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings with what Google will do to you.
Silly me.
Be that as it may, we need to get rid of AMP altogether. It's a much bigger evil than a bad website here or there. After AMP is gone, we can worry about one (or N) bad websites instead of a corp controlling all of them.
Yep, perfection it isn't, but this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully, the initiative that brought this forward also slowly rectifies the other issues with the site.
No, that's not why we need AMP. They should just fix the garbage.
"Just fix the garbage" doesn't work; it's there because someone in favor of the garbage wanted it there, and the folks opposed to the garbage didn't have the authority or influence to stop it.
...and that's the one thing AMP did right: it empowered developers to push back against the garbage by giving them a big ol' "Google says no" sign to wave around. Which is all kinds of problematic in terms of existential threats to the Open Web, but it did clean up that specific type of garbage.
How do we give anti-garbage folks that same power in a post-AMP world, without resorting to centralized authority?
...and that's the one thing AMP did right: it empowered developers to push back against the garbage by giving them a big ol' "Google says no" sign to wave around. Which is all kinds of problematic in terms of existential threats to the Open Web, but it did clean up that specific type of garbage.
How do we give anti-garbage folks that same power in a post-AMP world, without resorting to centralized authority?
Google fucked it because they wanted the control.
They could have easily made the spec just "here's the subset of crap you can use, and here's the extra rules" and left it at that, but they just had to add all of the other nonsense to give themselves control. Without that it would have been fine.
They could have still added in the part where they give pagerank bonuses to sites that comply, so there'd be an enforcement mechanism too.
They could have easily made the spec just "here's the subset of crap you can use, and here's the extra rules" and left it at that, but they just had to add all of the other nonsense to give themselves control. Without that it would have been fine.
They could have still added in the part where they give pagerank bonuses to sites that comply, so there'd be an enforcement mechanism too.
Everyone microfocused on Google and forgot AMP exists because Apple and Facebook created closed "AMPs" that were completely private.
No one won here except some people with an axe to grind and actual web users.
Hopefully web vitals can be a similar forcing function for dev teams with managers, leading to better quality for users.
No one won here except some people with an axe to grind and actual web users.
Hopefully web vitals can be a similar forcing function for dev teams with managers, leading to better quality for users.
If sites were "just fixing the garbage" Google wouldn't have had a reasonable reason for rolling out AMP.
I presume to some extent AMP was intended to be like Google Fiber. That is a kick in the pants to get others to up their game. It didn't work out that way.
The truth is too many sites are done with an all-about-the-brand mindest. And users are a distant second in the priority list. I'm not sure what the answer is. Sure, obviously, it's not AMP. But we still need something. Users - which is all of us - are being abused.
I presume to some extent AMP was intended to be like Google Fiber. That is a kick in the pants to get others to up their game. It didn't work out that way.
The truth is too many sites are done with an all-about-the-brand mindest. And users are a distant second in the priority list. I'm not sure what the answer is. Sure, obviously, it's not AMP. But we still need something. Users - which is all of us - are being abused.
They didn't have a good reason. They could have achieved everything and more that they said they wanted to get out of AMP by simply penalizing slow sites.
It was just another power grab, and publishers went with it because AMP sites were given priority in the SERPs.
Anyway, this has been talked about in many threads over 100's of comments.
It was just another power grab, and publishers went with it because AMP sites were given priority in the SERPs.
Anyway, this has been talked about in many threads over 100's of comments.
> They could have achieved everything and more that they said they wanted to get out of AMP by simply penalizing slow sites.
It's not that simple. If the slow sites have better content and/or Google's customers (i.e., the people searching) expect those sites then Google has to deliver, or at least try. Keep in mind, it's also possible those slow site were spending ad money. Like it or not, Google can't intentionally piss them off.
I'm not saying AMP was an ideal solution. Only that it was smarter than nothing. Nothing wasn't an option.
It's not that simple. If the slow sites have better content and/or Google's customers (i.e., the people searching) expect those sites then Google has to deliver, or at least try. Keep in mind, it's also possible those slow site were spending ad money. Like it or not, Google can't intentionally piss them off.
I'm not saying AMP was an ideal solution. Only that it was smarter than nothing. Nothing wasn't an option.
Did AMP improve the experience of Tribune Publishing websites? If it's hot garbage with AMP, removing it shouldn't hurt. But it will give them the ability to improve their sites rather than being locked into Google's choices.
Yes, AMP does (or at least did) generally improve the UX and the load time of most pages that integrated it. No giant blobs of third party ad scripts, no huge interstitials that took over the entire page... Whatever else you might say about AMP, it did a good job at handcuffing publishers into not ruining their site with garbage
Except that it made most of them slower for mobile users because it blocked page display until over a megabyte of JavaScript had finished executing, at which point media files were unblocked. My local newspaper loaded noticeably faster without it but more importantly it was reliable: I could click on a link and read it while I was on the subway, but AMP pages frequently just burned my data plan for a blank page.
They also broke scrolling for years and since the desktop experience was poor you had to deal with a hokey non-standard sharing widget.
They also broke scrolling for years and since the desktop experience was poor you had to deal with a hokey non-standard sharing widget.
When I worked for Tribune (before the LA Times got sold off) it was a hot mess of adtech garbage like Taboola that nobody had the guts to get rid of.
Tronc 4 lyfe.
Funny, I was going to post something snarky b/c TFA was attractive and easy to read. Since the author works for Chicago Tribune I went to the site and... not at all bad, considering the commercial constraints legacy media is stuck with.
I agree, considering the constraints, it's not bad. The problem is the constraints, and whatever you think about AMP, at least it was an attempt to tackle this problem head on.
I don't know what you're talking about, they are nice, clean and snappy with JavaScript turned off :)))))
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… yet they still use medium, with its collection of problems.
The article doesn't state how the graphs are produced. I hope they are stacked rather than plain lines, otherwise the comment that people transitioned to normal mobile access is wrong and those visits just vanished.
The article doesn't state how the graphs are produced. I hope they are stacked rather than plain lines, otherwise the comment that people transitioned to normal mobile access is wrong and those visits just vanished.
I think they must be stacked based on their description of amp as most of their traffic when it's the lowest line, but I agree the graph design is bewildering and does not read to me as stacked without thinking hard about what they are saying.
Yeah, I assume they are stacked. But they could do with better design to make that obvious (it isn't at all without inferring from the text) or some clarification in the text (or just with the graph key).
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If I remember correctly pageviews didn't increase when we used it, which was the idea as google would rank us higher.