Have Yorkshire newspapers given up on the web?

The publication here last week of the top 50 most popular sites has sparked off some debate round our way. The main one being what are the big newspaper boys playing at!

We are finally getting this speedy broadband Internet sorted up here - it seems it doesn't involve squads of Irish lads ripping up the coursy - and yet no-one round these parts seem to be busting a gut to take advantage.

When the gang told me that Ayup is in the top 40 most popular Yorkshire sites on the net, I nearly choked on my Frosties. The darned thing is put together by a few lunatics with laptops (and one of them is of no fixed abode and kipping on floors - usually mine...) so what on earth is going on? This daft website with sections that haven't had a spring clean since 1999 - new jokes lads, PLEASE! - is still out performing the likes of Sheffield Star on the net.

It's not like there's no money being chucked at the websites. Somebody must be working hard to get the Yorkshire Post to the top of the Google searches and it isn't the teaboy.

But the extraordinary hit rate of The Yorkshire Posts, a no-nonsensecommunity bulletin board, just shows up the big money boys so much you wonder if they are even trying to provide a good service online.

ThisIsYourNameHere.co.uk sites are all effectively the same company, Newsquest, owned by American media giant Gannett. They have been quick to round up the whole family of local newspaper sites into one operation, with a bunch of regional sounding portals.

The other big slacker in our corner of the Internet is Johnston Press, owner of the Sheffield Star, Morning Telly, Yorkshire Post and a whole heap of other tomes. The South Yorkshire sites are OK (if a little lacking in the hit department) but if what they've done with their flagship site, www.ypn.co.uk is anything to go by, we're in for a dull time of it.

You've probably noticed how the old YP has dropped off on the net. So lets make this plain. The current Yorkshire Post online format can be replicated with the purchase of a good updatable online software (like Article Manager) and a subscription to Reuters. You could do it from your bedroom before you go to work. Come to think about it, if some sponsor came along to pay our wages we could do this same thing right here with just a few grand spent. And we might even throw in the odd picture (shock!) and a way for people to communicate. To see the YP descend to such an amateur level is a bit of a shocker to say the least. And yes, it's changed its online name yet again...

Some of the other sites seem little better - not least the once groovy Huddersfield Daily Examiner, now being drowned in the Mirror Group's baffling and totally unmemorable ICNetwork. Now there was a website.

But none of these site have any editorial voice, any local flavour. They are all pretty much average websites designed by techies and lacking any photographic content. Its no bloody wonder that no-one could be bothered surfing in on these dreadful cobweb sites.

You see the web is about creating more than an online speak your weight machine. If someone is going to be bothered remembering to type a stupid URL like http://ichuddersfield.icnetwork.co.uk/ every day they are going to want a bit more than a template put together by a bunch of droids 200 miles away.

To me the real heroes of the net are guys like Ireson Computers, a tiny York firm. They've put together a York site that's attracting as many hits as the officially funded tourist sites with their full time thumb-twiddlers having meetings about every word they publish. They put together york-united-kingdom.co.uk/ for the love of it all. And it might need a designers eye to pretty it up a bit, but its doing the business.

What we need is a set of online newspapers that have a bit of style, a bit of wit and a lot of gumption. But we seem to have a bunch of witless wonders who would rather let their sites descend into mediocrity rather than make an effort. Design blind and wordstruck these people are making a mockery of what is possible on the web.

If you can't be bothered, boys, just stick to your newsprint. And if you ARE interested find yourself some dedicated writers, some keen webheads, a decent design company and shape yourselves up! Because if a buch of part time halfwits like us can outperform you you've got serious problems...

Blogga.