HuffPost Canada Debuts: Canadians Not Happy

[troutman]

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/05..._n_867235.html

It's not every day one gets to be the new kid on the block in one's own country. Today, we're excited to enter our new neighbourhood. To many of you who have been visiting The Huffington Post, we hope you like what you see. As Arianna Huffington says in writing about our launch, expect the same look and approach to news and issues, but with a uniquely Canadian spin.

Reader comments are largely negative, as Canadians are automatically directed to the Canadian page:

Only from reading to the 248 comments or so, you can officially declare the Launch of Huffington Post Canada by the use of Force a BIG failure.

Like SO many readers of Huffington­post.com, I have logged in for the first time ever to make a comment strictly because of this inane decision to forcibly redirect us to a Canadian page. Why do you think we read the Huffington post in the first place? To seek out local Canadian news? This is absurd. An awful judgment call and right now given the universall­y negative response, whoever put their hand up in the boardroom suggesting a Canadian Huffpost AND making Canadians have to view it, is likely packing their desk belongings into a cardboard box about now.
Looking forward to this being fixed. Cheers.

I don't see the big deal - you can still easily connect to the US content.

[SportsJunky]

It bothered me at first this morning when I saw a pic of the back of Layton's bald head and thought wdf? I do not like being steered to Canadian content on the internet. If I wanted to go to ca. I would but I want to go to com.

[HotHotHeat]

iPad app still goes to American version. The Canadian version had a bit of stuff that was interesting, but I don't go to huff post for Canadian news.

[Azure]

Yeah, pretty dumb of them.

Make .ca the Canadian version, and .com the American version, without the redirects.

[Gozer]

Seems like pretty effective (free) marketing about the Canadian launch.

[llama64]

Would it have KILLED the site owners to ask their Canadian Readers how they would like this roll out.

Personally I hate getting redirects based on IP. The internet is supposed to be about the reader requesting information, not being pushed information.

[HotHotHeat]

Not sure if it was there yesterday, but you can now very simply switch to the US version of the front page using the drop down menu for front page (or any other sections). Main bar, left side for front page.

[calumniate]

It's now owned by AOL right? Pretty much the dumbest company ever.. so I'm not surprised..