The Better Daily Star Project

We made it to the Daily Star's Wikipedia Page

2010-02-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

I guess we're becoming "official" :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daily_Star_(Lebanon)

The website has been criticized widely for its poor design and slow loading pages. A renegade Better Daily Star project has been started by one of the readers posting the daily edition of the website only with better design.

BDSP getting serious publicity..

2010-02-12T02:55:00.000-08:00

I'm overwhelmed by the interest many are showing to this project. I keep getting emails from people wanting to write about our project in magazines and websites (no newspapers so far ;) )

Now The Global Voices Online, an internationally recognized website that collects the "pulse" of countries by listening to what bloggers there are saying, wrote a post about the Better Daily Star project and how Lebanese bloggers are reacting to it.

Take a look at what they have to say.

Daily Star won't come out on Wednesday- holiday

2010-02-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

Some Problems With Internet Explorer

2010-02-08T04:55:00.000-08:00

*Update*: The problem is a bit more stubborn than I had anticipated. This will need the big guns. The big guns will take slightly more time. Sorry. Please use Firefox, Chrome or Safari until the issue is solved.

It just came to my attention that #BDSP is not playing very well on Internet Explorer.

The problem has been identified and will be fixed by tomorrow's edition hopefully.

Stats, facelift plans and Saturday off

2010-02-05T15:17:00.001-08:00

You guys are really liking this project. Check out the stats. We started on Wednesday and the numbers just keep going upwards.

Now, we want to make it even better. I'm getting some good feedback from you, and I need to implement some of your suggestions. For that to happen, we'll need to skip Saturday's edition, sorry..

Hopefully we'll meet on Monday with an even better daily star

Reminder: We Love The Dailystar

2010-02-05T04:20:00.000-08:00

Just in case we were not clear, let's make the following points one more time:

-The aim of #BDSP is not to steal away viewers from the Daily Star's website. It's to regain back readers who have left them in frustration. In fact, the DS should pay us to do this :)

-This project is not meant in any way to hurt the reputation of the Daily Star. The point of this project is to try to steer the Daily Star's website away from what we believe is the wrong course

-When the Daily Star finally puts a better website in place, this project will no longer have to exist. Our mission will be done. In fact, we will turn into their biggest cheerleaders

- We completely respect intellectual property rights. We never pretend that we own this stuff or that we wrote the articles, this is why this project strives to make the correct attributions to each and every article

Have something to ask? beirutspring [at] gmail [.] com

Where we are now

2010-02-04T11:29:00.000-08:00

So this project has gotten people talking..

In the stats, I've seen people come from Facebook (people must have posted us to their friends). Many are coming from Twitter, and most importantly, renown blogs like qifanabki.com and waterinmajorca are enthusiastically supporting us.

We're getting between 120&150 hits per day, and it's just the beginning (wait till you tell your friends and they tell theirs). Thank you for your enthusiasm

Here's a sample comment from Qifa Nabki's reader:

wow. I feel I can breathe! I positively HATE the Daily Star website as it is now (does it sound strange that reading it makes me claustrophobic?)

In a few hours, I'll post Friday's issue, so stay tuned..

Spurred Into Action?

2010-02-03T09:15:00.000-08:00

A Little bird at the Daily Star told me that this project (#BDSP as of now) has caused quite the stir in the newspaper's offices, complete with delicious, furious email exchanges between I.T. and everyone else.

Apparently I.T. ended up promising a spanking new website in no more than two to three weeks. Yes, you heard correctly. The website was ready all along, they said. They just needed to dust it off when management gives them the green light.

Taking credit for that would be too self-congratulatory, but I'd like to think that #BDSP in its own way helped focus their attention on the topic.

But that doesn't mean we're stopping work. In fact, we're just getting started. See you with tomorrow's edition.

You can follow me on twitter @beirutspring

Frequently asked questions. (FAQ)

2010-02-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

The Better Daily Star Project. FAQ

Is this design just a static prototype?

Nope. This will behave like a normal newspaper. In other words, if you open it tomorrow first thing in the morning, you'll find all the articles of tomorrow's Daily Star there. This can be a perfect alternative website for you to check with you warm cup of morning coffee.

Why am I doing it. What's the point?

Well, I am trying to say this: If one guy (yours humbly) can use freely available opensource software (wordpress if you must know) to create this alternative, arguably better website in two weeks, why can't a newspaper with an actual IT department do it? In other words, I'm shooting down the argument that it would be too expensive to do. Listen to me well: They're just being lazy.

But isn't this Illegal?

Probably. But I'm not making any money out of it (in fact, I'm paying some in effort and hosting fees), and I promise that as soon as they do something about their site, I'll gladly bow out. Besides, it will cost them more to sue me than to actually fix their site and let me off their back.

What about those ads?

IF you find ads in the #BDSP rest assured that they are fake. I just want to tell the Daily Star folks that just because a website is nice doesn't mean you can't have ads in there. We want you to make money and thrive because we want you to stay around in a few years.

Euh.. #BDSP ??

That's short for: Better Daily Star Project. Very helpful in Twitter (my twitter is @beirutspring)

Anything else I should know?

Yes, below are some important notes on the project

-The aim of #BDSP is not to steal away viewers from the Daily Star's website. It's to regain back readers who have left them in frustration. In fact, the DS should pay us to do this :)

-This project is not meant in any way to hurt the reputation of the Daily Star. The point of this project is to try to steer the Daily Star's website away from what we believe is the wrong course

-When the Daily Star finally puts a better website in place, this project will no longer have to exist. Our mission will be done. In fact, we will turn into their biggest cheerleaders

- We completely respect intellectual property rights. We never pretend that we own this stuff or that we wrote the articles, this is why this project strives to make the correct attributions to each and every article

For more questions, you can always send me an email to beirutspring at gmail d0t com

The Better Daily Star Project.. Here we go!

2010-02-03T04:21:00.000-08:00

Hey,

Some of you know me, some of you don't. I'm that guy who blogs (well, more like used to blog) at The Beirut Spring. But even if we've never met, we probably have something in common: We read the Daily Star, lebanon's only English-language daily.

Now between you and me and the whole world: Isn't their website quite the eyesore?

I live abroad. I don't have access to the printed edition. All I have is the website, and man reading that thing makes me feel like my eyes have been wearing tight shoes all day.

So I figured I'll try to do something about it. I have a background in web design and I dabbled a bit in journalism. I'm very motivated, so i was like screw it: i'm doing this.

But what started as a little thing on the side began turning into a big thing. I found out that The Daily Star has excellent journalists and wonderful pieces. They're just buried under piles and piles of rubbish, which is another way of saying broken links, adsense jungles, expired sections, in-your-face bells-and-whistles that do nothing at all. Listen to my articles read by a robot? Really Daily Star? Really?

Anyway, this is the blog where I'll tell you how everything unfolds in this project, so please stay tuned.

For all questions and inquiries, please email me to beirutspring at gmail d0t com