Daily News needs a makeover

I'm a daily reader of the New York Daily News, not for its groundbreaking investigative work, but for it's sports reporting. However, the paper's website is probably the poorest one I read every day.

The Daily News does not provide any original content on its site nor does it have any multimedia. Even the Boston Herald does a decent job of changing pace and making things fresh for its web site.

I find it very surprising that the News has yet to catch on to the Internet scene. The paper has great circulation and has a following, and yet does very little to attract the online community. The farthest it's gone is creating sports blogs. To give you an idea of how unusual this is, here's the Audit Bureau of Circulations' Top 10 newspapers according to circulation:

1. USA Today - 2,549,252
2. The Wall Street Journal - 2,047,127
3. New York Times - 1,623,697
4. Los Angeles Times - 1,172,005
5. Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News - 1,039,340
6. Chicago Tribune - 937,907
7. The Washington Post - 930,619
8. New York Daily News - 780,196
9. New York Post - 708,561
10. Houston Chronicle - 692,586

Only the Daily News has a pedestrian web site with no multimedia and little original online content. The other nine make an effort to create a demand for the websites.

Now I don't mind as much because I use the News' website to read the paper content, but improvements need to be made to attract more people to the site. There does seem to be some hope for the sensational tabloid. On its careers page the News has this written:

The New York Daily News is relaunching its website, NYDailyNews.com. We are looking for candidates with online advertising sales experience to expand the operation of our website. We are in start-up mode - providing excellent growth opportunity.

Good luck to Mort Zuckerman and his crew.