Armenian Media Shape Up for The Election Battle

"Some things never change in this world" - the advanced internet user of today might think looking at the website of some major Armenian media outlets, like that of AZG daily Armenpress, Arminfo, and a number of others. Many of these guys have been going with the same interface for AGES (3 or more years). I mean - come on! In this world of rapidly changing internet technologies you don't do that!

But - there IS JUSTICE on this earth! Or there is A1plus; Panorama.am; Panarmenian.net and Yerkir Media for those who're loosing patience and hope. Yes - there is justice, and there is XML/RSS which the mentioned four sites happily provide the user (Yerkir Media's pretty cool - they've actually been putting online most of their news video content - now that's cool!). Moreover - A1plus have done their third redesign over the period of last 3 years, Panorama and Yerkir Media only recently did the second revamp - which considering their short period of existence (1,5 years for Panorama, and about 6-7 months for the Yerkir Media far as I can remember) implies serious investments. As to the Panarmenian.net - they are simply the first to adapt any new technology. Now - please observe - that I'm only discussing new web site designs (sometimes shifting from bad to worse as the case of Yerkir Media might be) and new technologies here. As for the content and quality of content feel free to join the discussion thread at Oneworld Multimedia.

One thing that nicely surprised me was the International Public Radio of Armenia and the new interface of Aravot.am called new.aravot.am. Among other things Iravunk have completely ruined their old design which was pretty good, the Second Armenian TV and Shant TV have introduced more ore less regular news postings starting from the end of December 2006. Armenia TV have something on TV that they call News - and starting this January they have introduced something that they call News to their website too. They have only posted January 11th news so far - so I guess that was a test launch or something.

What I'm hinting at is the fact, that all of a sudden many of the major Armenian media who seemed to live quite happily without ever remembering about things like Internet, and most of the pretty regular old ones are doing redesigns and introducing new features to their websites. I have vague suspicions, that it is all somehow related to the upcoming parliamentary elections. No? You don't think so? OK - tell me about it in the comments section :)

I know my little analysis is rather incomplete and biased, as is the list of Armenian Media Bookmarks I check fairly regularly and have uploaded to my blogs sidebar for everybody to use.