What I hear you saying is...

The pundits are pleased: Jarvis gushes, Arrington applauds, and Rubel throws a bone or two. Let's give an old stalwart some props for making a solid effort in building community around news, they seem to say.

IMO, it appears to be a reasonable foray into UGC. My one objective comment is that it's horribly slow. But otherwise there are some nifty features, plus some nice eye candy like the random comment widget in the header, and the ability to leave messages on profile pages.

Wonder what the users think?

Egad... 139 comments like these:

-- My initial impression is an unfavorable one. I was more than pleased with the original layout. This wreaks of change for the sake of change in the sense of the layout. Of course this is the initial impression, but as they say, no second chance at this first impression. -- If I wanted to view my news like DIGG I would go to DIGG.com. I used to view news via the old Netscape.com site as well until they went to a DIGG type of format. Sorry, I'll get my news elsewhere now. -- usatoday has been my homepage for 8 years plus. Your new design is a train wreck. I'll try to adjust, but it doesn't look good........ -- HATE the new look ! Is this is a national newspaper, or a newsblog ? -- Who cares what someone in Missouri or Idaho thinks of a reported story (news)? Who cares what I in Michigan think compared to someone in New Hampshire, Georgia or Switzerland? The responsibility you undertook was to report the news. You should continue to excercise your responsibility!

It goes on an on - and there's a whole parallel thread that pretty much reflects the same litany. Those last two quotes are really interesting to me, though.

USAToday has worked for years to build the "McNewspaper" brand. I can recognize their weather pages from 500 yards away. I still read the terse little state-snippets of places I've lived before, just to see what's happening. I like their graphics-heavy sports pages.

They are a really comfortable brand. Now they've gone and messed with the recipe.

This reminds me of branding experiments with two other grand-daddies: Coke and McDonald's.

When Coke released New Coke, they went whole-hog and actually replaced their existing product. When it crashed, they had to back-pedal like crazy to get "Classic Coke" released to the angry masses. Not good.

McDonald's, on the other hand, has always been more careful with their branding. When the Arch Deluxe flopped, users could fall back on the Big Mac. Not good, either, since the brand was diluted. But it wasn't trashed either. It was an extension that was severed, albeit at the cost of $300 McMillion.

So does USAToday believe their online presence is an extension that can be gambled with, like an ArchDeluxe? Or, as more and more users move online to get their news, have they barrelled ahead with all pistons firing on a New Coke?

We are in the middle of our own radical redesign right now at Topix, so far be it from me to throw stones at glass houses. To the contrary, I applaud USAToday for taking some pretty big steps in experimenting with ways to get their readers more involved.

But on a branding level, Topix doesn't have a whole lot to lose. In terms of public mindshare, Topix is more like the "Mr. Pibb" of online news sites: Great "Dr. Pepper-like" taste, but good luck finding it at the market. (Incidentally, we're about to change all of this).

USAToday has a lot to lose.

In fact, they have everything to lose. They are the #7 news website, just after Google news. They have placed a Henry Ford bet on building a new machine -- not a faster horse. Consequently, they may turn-off their entire constituency of readers, leaving a burning crater as users flee for CNN, MSNBC, and other sites.

The motivation to innovate in the online news space seems tentative right now, especially with the traditional newspapers. LA Times and Washington Post have both had disastrous UGC experiments that resulted in removal poste-haste from their properties. Even Yahoo recently pulled their comment systems down for no clear reason or alternative. A lot of industry eyes are going to be scrutinizing the tea-leaves of this USAToday re-launch to see how it plays into their own UGC strategies.

So if the traffic takes a dip in the early going, will the Gannett execs have the intestinal fortitude to forge ahead, damn the torpedoes and never surrender this plan-so-crazy-it-just-might-work? Or will they pale in the horror at the nazgul cries of their revolting reader-brood, and roll back the old site?

I dunno, but I'm going to whip up some Orville Redenbacher and enjoy the show. :-)