Good news and bad about the KC Star and their website

First, the good news. I've been meaning to write about this since the weekend. The good news is that the Star has taken to advertising and pushing for their website (www.kansascity.com). I saw it for the first time in a half-page ad they ran Saturday at the back of the "Saturday Homes" (E) section. It may have been run before but it's the first I'd seen of it. So good for them. They need to support and push it, for sure. Now the bad news, of course. The bad news is that a) the site hasn't changed, b) it's still difficult, at best, to find stories on the site that are in the paper (though for the first time the other day I was able to type in 2 keywords from the article in the paper and not only get the article online I wanted but to get it on the first try. Needless to say, I was stunned, thrilled and happy for them), c) the online "paper" still doesn't look like the traditional thrown paper (heads up, guys--check out the NY Times--they "get it") and finally, d) unfortunately we Americans--and maybe the world--still expect to get virtually everything on the internet free so they still haven't figured out how to make money off the internet version yet, very, highly likely. This last one I don't blame them for, of course. I will tell you, if you know how they can turn that online site into a profit-making "cash cow", you should run, not walk to their offices and let them know. I'm sure it would pay you big dividends in the meantime. To close, I would give this advice to any and all on the staff of The Kansas City Star: I would do what my friend at Blockbuster Video did a year or two ago and get out now, while you can, before newspapers go the way they did--that of the 8-track tape. Keep cool, everyone.