"Mixing" It Up

I had to share a great email from addicted2crowes, a Black Crowes fanatic.

First, some background. Here in South Florida, City Link, formerly XS Magazine, a great news, arts & entertainment weekly for 16 years, has been systematically gutted over the last few years by it low-rent, low-class corporate bosses, (Forum Publishing Group), who have aggressively attempted to replace their seasoned journalistic staff members with minimum-wage, untrained and mostly clueless newbie’s who can't string two sentences together.

Several weeks ago, City Link's online site, which was operated on a shoestring but managed to post all of the features that made the paper worth reading, was killed off and replaced by "Metromix," a generic entertainment site that seems to be mostly all wire service celebrity gossip coupled with hideously bad restaurant, bar and club reviews.

I got a copy of a2c's comments on the new site that is hilarious. Check it out:

What, no Vanilla Ice?

After numerous attempts to reach City Link online, I am finally presented with "Metromix," portending to be my new "home" for music, nightlife, restaurants, clubs and more.

In case you were too busy slaving over 14 pages of celebrity Britney, Paris et al, to notice that the housing market sucks, let me update you. People aren't buying homes, and I'm not buying this glossy fluff piece.

Hey, I know you're beta, and most of the content is so generic that I can get it anywhere, but even the feeble attempt to provide local info leaves me asking where is all the City Link material that draws me on to the web in the first place? They have in-depth and unique event listings with stuff that even New Times doesn't bother to find; Timeline, which is drop-dead amazing, and the best music and film writers anywhere. I mean please, Beth Feinstein-Bartel on local music? She is, I am sure, a very nice lady, but she's got to be at least 60 -- she was writing for the Sun-Sentinel 20 years ago when I was in high school. Not that it matters when all you get from her is recycled press releases. Where is Dan Sweeney?

Look, it's a nice try, very pretty and flashy and well organized. It's just bad that without pros who know the local scene writing for you, and depending on "content producers" and "special correspondents," Metromix comes off as just another pathetic, all-fluff, all-the-time, attempt by big media to reach out and connect with the information-age, high-spending, pop-culture superficial trendoids who advertisers covet.

All flash and no soul. I'll be back when you give me a reason to invest my time.

a2c