Why a picture of former Gov. Burke you ask?  I ask why not.  Woodrow Wilson liked the guy, and so should you.

Luckily David Brauer, a writer for the MinnPost.com² whom I happen to love to read has agreed³ to bring up North Dakota once in a while.

Hold the phone, while finding the next link I discovered that Mr. Brauer is on Twitter.  Follow him if you dare.  I did.

Anyway this weeks news of Forum Communications laying off some staff prompted this post from Brauer: Et tu, North Dakota Media Moguls?  Essentially, its a “welcome to a recession ND” post.  Entertaining to me, a short post about the declining Media market for others.  I only mention the post because I like seeing my state in the news.

Some people are jealous of ND, and this time its not for our sparse population and wide open prairies.  They look to our economy and budget surplus as some of the few bright [well, less dim] spots around the country⁴.  I’m not sure how well founded those views are, because ND is bound to feel the pressure later if not sooner.  Be on your guard ND.  Times have been relatively quiet on the economic front in the home state.  Lets hope it stays that way.

Luckily, late Monday night, Chris Welle, whom I follow on Twitter, brought my attention to the Forum’s brand spanking new website: www.inforum.com.  Lets take a quick look to compare the sites.

First the old site:

And now the new site:

It is somewhat difficult to see the differences in the screen grabs above, but the new site has a number of improvements:

1. A new wider format.  The old site was very narrow with the sidebars talking up about 65% of the screen.  The new site gives the actual news stories much more real estate than the previous site;
2. Revamped RSS feeds which offer greater choice in the type of stories syndicated along with fewer of the annoying ads that the old feed had;
3. A better story tagging feature which will help ad targeting among other things;
4. Better navigation and search features;
5. Finally, the new appearance of the site should not be overlooked.  I simply think the new format and templates of inform.com are a vast improvement over the old site.

It is great to see more local paper’s update their look to conform to modern web standards, and I think Inforum.com certainly went about the change the right way.  I am excited be a regular visitor of the new and improved site.

Are there more examples of smaller media/communications companies [Forum Communications isn't small, but the area/region it serves doesn't qualify as a top market] improving their content online, or are most smaller news outlets in need of face lifts?