Philebrity’s Five Immutable Laws Of What Happens When Alt-Weeklies Redo Their Websites
Let’s play a little game, shall we? We are hearing that Philadelphia Weekly will be re-launching its website for the 84th time ever tomorrow. And even though we typed things like “test” and “dev” at the end of its URL to sneak a peek, we still have not seen it yet. But this much we know, having been around the block with alt-weekly do-overs a few times: It will almost definitely adhere to Philebrity’s Five Immutable Laws Of What Happens When Alt-Weeklies Redo Their Websites. So let’s outline them below, and A/B it tomorrow, or whenever, or not at all. Because really: Who fucking cares. Here, then, are the Laws:
1. The website acts out some elaborate version of the following denial mantra: “Craigslist does not exist. Craigslist does not exist. Craigslist does not exist.” To that end, we’re hearing that the new PW site has “enhanced real estate functionality.” Ahem.
2. Everybody gets a blog! Because what’s the best way to tax a skeleton-crew editorial staff that is already writing the whole paper because your dogshit paper cut nearly its entire freelance budget? Make everybody blog. Yes, Virginia, it’s probably true: Starting tomorrow, all the people you don’t read in Philadelphia Weekly already will be forced to blog. (No word on if Steven Wells counts in this.) Which is good, we suppose, since DMac is pretty much the laziest fuck to ever learn WordPress. (Nice work on jumping all over the Inky story today, guy.)
3. Somebody goes crazy with a database. Let’s hope there’s none of this nonsense.
4. Sometimes, Brainsoap happens.
5. Process repeats five years later, with the exact same results.
