Jan. 17, 2007

About 56% of the nearly 26,500 people replying to the question of frequency of site updates want more – even fans.

Writes Ashley, of Georgia: "I wouldn't mind seeing it updated more often, but it's great as it is!" Anne, of the Garden State, concurs. "I think you update great during the week. It's the weekends that I see the same page over and over. But you cannot employ Web designers 24 hours a day, so I forgive you!"
It's clear you've noticed our biorhythms. Steve, of Muskego, Wis., wants the home page updated at midnight, not 2 a.m., but Joe, of Spring, Texas, is up at 5 a.m., sipping his coffee and not seeing much change.  And weekends? Well, our staffing is showing.

Here are some insights into how we work, and what we've got planned to address your concerns.

MSN.com's home page has 24/7 coverage, between journalists from MSN and MSNBC. MSN editors tend to the main portions of the page, constantly evaluating and elevating news and other content. The MSNBC.com editors post to the MSNBC news box, located on the right side of the MSN home page, ‘round the clock. This ensures the page is fresh with news big and small.

One point to remember is that MSNBC is a news site, with frequent updates like those expected of a cable TV station. Conversely, MSN is a portal that blends in news, created like a hybrid of a newspaper and magazine, with a bit of TV and interactive features in its DNA.

When news warrants, an MSN editor may choose to relocate a story from or to the MSNBC box. When big news occurs, usually a story is moved to a more visible spot on the home page, often in one of the three rotating dominant photo slots or the small photo to the right of the Today's Picks section.

MSN editors work weekdays, starting early Eastern time in our New York offices, with the larger team in our Redmond, Wash., newsroom bolstering our numbers during the busiest parts of the day and deep into the evening.  Usually, at 3 a.m. ET, through an automated process, a new version of the home page goes live. (That's 2 a.m. for Steve in Wisconsin, on Central time).

On a typical day, Joe, in the Lone Star State, should be seeing the overnight remake, plus any news changes in the MSNBC and FOX Sports box.

When major news breaks, MSN editors are there for you. We stay late (election night or Saddam's hanging, for instance), update into the wee hours (like for last Monday's NCAA football championship or Gerald Ford's death), or come in to the office (Asian tsunamis), regardless the hour.

On weekends, an editor relies on automation and tends to other developments as needed, depending on the scope of the day's news. Additional editors and designers are on call to jump in as necessary.

Through automation and invigorated planning, we are experimenting starting this weekend with additional content programmed in our more visible spots. This trial, however, will be seen by only a sliver of our users until it’s fully tested.

While about a third of our users are satisfied with our frequency of updates, plenty are frustrated by being unable to find a story after it's been removed, like Leann of Bothell, Wash., who wanted to return to a vacation getaway story that ran in one of our rotating photo slots on Jan. 11.

And Phil of Syracuse, N.Y., voices a situation described by several of you: "You guys are great about keeping all your news up to the minute, but I saw a fun story that I was interested in reading, had to go into a meeting, and when I came out about an hour later it was already gone! And yes, I did try searching for the story –  both on your Web site and on other search engines. It was gone, gone, gone. Very frustrating. You need a better archiving/searching method, especially for stories that just ran that day!"

Likewise, Dennis, of Lansdale, Pa., suggested a dropdown window to access the last few home pages; Cindy of Lake Forest, Calif., wanted an catalog of a couple of days' worth of stories. And D.R.G., writing from Canton, Ohio, urged more updates but also the ability to check for up to a week's worth of content.  That's not an easy issue to solve. Archiving and navigating people to content is a challenge – and one reason the search box is displayed so prominently.

But finding content isn't the same as finding fresh content.

Perhaps my favorite letter this week was from Melanie, of Long Beach, Calif., who clearly delights in being able to weigh in.

"Oh, boy, have I been waiting for this one! Not only is content not updated frequently enough, but there is another tactic MSN uses that is extremely irritating. That is the 're-titling' of old stories, often in the Money or Entertainment sections, although I have seen this on many sections.  An old, sometimes weeks-old, story will be moved to another area of the front page, with a slightly different title. The headline is often just different enough to make the reader think it is an update to the earlier story. I have seen this so often that I am very likely to use other news sources than MSN."

We don't want to lose you, Melanie. We notice the repetition, too. Soon I'll address our "no-run" story list, comprised of topics that, as managing editor Don Sena says, "have been run ad nauseam and are now verboten."