Chicago, IL

By A.B. Dada

—

As I said last night in my post, Chicago Tribune Bankruptcy, the filing for bankruptcy by the Tribune Company is not a big deal.  The company is privately owned, so it doesn’t affect any publicly traded share price.

In reality, I think this filing gives the Chicago Tribune newspaper itself a positive goal to reach: liquidate some assets from the parent company, and focus on short term reductions in losses while focusing on the long term profitability possibilities.

Chicago is a great city, still segregated in many ways (not just by race), with an adventurous variety in the various groups people consider themselves part of.  From the young artists to the old geeks, there’s a huge number of community sections to tap.  The Chicago Tribune is a far better enterprise to focus on for Zell and friends than is the Los Angeles Times, CareerBuilder, or Metromix.  It will not shock me if Zell finds a buyer for the Los Angeles TImes and the rest, possibly even Gannett Company as I said in my previous post.

By getting rid of some not-so-profitable assets, Zell will see an ability to pay down debt for the 12-24 months it will take the newspaper to rebuild their advertising base.  The new format of the Chicago Tribune should be a great attraction for local advertisers, who will also begin advertising again once the recessionary pressures are lessened.

The caveats: the bathroom and the public train.  For year, the daily rag was a regular visitor to both the rest room and the train.  Today, though, we’re seeing more and more people holding their iPhones and their T-Mobile G1s while in either setting.  This is an area that the Tribune Company is greatly lacking.  Selling branding space for each mobile view is an important need of the Tribune Company.  But there’s another thing holding the Chicago Tribune back from mobile browsing: their website, and their domain name.

I hate having to type Chicagotribune.com on my mobile phone.  Why not pay (any amount) for a shorter, easier to type domain name?  I’d even go so far as to make sure the domain name is easily typed on a T9 keyboard or that funky Blackberry keyboard.  It should be short, easy to remember, and brandable.  ChiTri.com?  I have no idea, but Zell should be doing it TODAY.

The second problem: search engine results.  If I look up a hot news subject on Google through my mobile browser, and click on a Chicago Tribune result, the Tribune’s inane web server won’t take me to a mobile page.  Instead, it forces me to their Mobile News homepage, where I lose interest (I don’t want to search for my article), and click back to Google to find another news source.  Page views lost, Zell!

What the Chicago Tribune NEEDS to do with their website is integrate it better between desktop and mobile browsers.  This is SIMPLE to do with basic CSS programming: if the server detects a desktop browser, show the full detail.  If it detects a mobile browser, cut back on extraneous information, and display the mobile ad.  Easy.  They should do it today.

On top of that, the Tribune sites need to be better organized with Facebook and other social network.  When someone goes to Yelp.com and leaves a review, their Facebook page shows their friends that they left the review.  Why doesn’t the Tribune site do that for comments left by Facebook users?  There are numerous things the Tribune Company can do immediately, and should be doing.  They’re one of the most read newspapers in the country.  Their website should be #1, too.

The bankruptcy filing means nothing to the Chicago Tribune, because it means that the Chicago Tribune can use the money from selling useless assets to make themselves the best news source around.  Will they do it?  I doubt it, but they can.  And I’m for hire if Mr. Zell wants to give me a call and turn his paper around in a matter of days, not years.

Related posts:

1. Chicago Tribune Bankruptcy Ploy: nothing to see here
2. Blagojevich Corruption, Obama and the Tribune Company?
3. Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern statement
4. Google is NOT making their own web browser
5. The DJIA, NASDAQ, price of gold and silver: they don’t matter
6. Ugly Wordpress Theme
7. FICO lesson: why higher credit limits matter
8. Why Climate-Gate doesn’t matter to me
9. What is bumburbia?
10. Obama and Infanticide: it doesn’t matter