Jonathan Dube is now the soon-to-be-ex-director of digital media for CBC.ca and the new vice-president of ABCNews.com. He's leaving after three years on the job.

This struck me in a 2006 Ryerson Review of Journalism profile:

(Sue) Gardner (former director of CBC.ca) was delighted when Dube expressed interest. "He was exactly what I was looking for," she says. "We'll sit in meetings and he can say, 'Well we did this at MSNBC,' or, 'We tried this and ended up going down some other road,' or, 'I know folks at CNN who can do X or Y or Z.'"

Now, did someone with Dube's breadth of experience -- who can drop the kinds of names that impress the Gardners of this world -- make the site better through his presence or not? CBC.ca is a fine site, but as I've said at other times, if my mandate is to do nothing but spend money, I can give you one hellofa website! OTOH, having to make a profit is kind of a bitch. :)

InsideTheCBC.com had this to say:

“Under his leadership, the site has more than doubled its traffic,” said Todd Spencer, executive director of news content for CBC News, “[Making it] the top rated Canadian news site in both unique visits and quality of news coverage.”

Since joining CBC’s online team, Dube launched commenting on all news and sports stories and the incorporation of user-generated content into the site, expanded the news site to include new sections on technology, consumer life, diversions, visitor feedback and revamped money and health sections. As a result, the amount of daily content published on the site has more than doubled, and the length of user visits has significantly increased.

The thing is, if you spend more money to put up more content, you get more page views. If you see this post, other sites had beaten CBC.ca to the punch on reader comments on individual stories, and I'd like to see some evidence that CBC.ca was a leader on user-generated content (this was a wider industry trend). And check out this CBC Editors Blog post of Dube's -- study how carefully he picked and chose his spots to respond to comments. Ask yourself exactly how much the conversation was broadened.

But, enough of that. Back to money.

It would be interesting to know how much CBC.ca's budget increased during that period. For example, if you double your budget and don't double your content published, then you're doing something wrong.

CBC.ca likes to crow about big numbers but not how much it spends to achieve them. The site employed 160 people as of June 2006, according to Gardner. The news site listed 36 names back then, when I checked the credits just now, I counted 61.

I should say that when I worked at CBC.ca in the summer of 2003, I attended a talk that Dube delivered to the staff. He struck as a very knowledgeable guy and seemed okay as a person.

At that time, he was working at MSNBC.com, which was then doing the most cutting-edge online news delivery in the world.

To repeat, CBC.ca is a fine site that does many things very well, but I haven't seen it do anything in the past three years that has dazzled me in the way that MSNBC.com did at its creative best.

However, that's the thing about the United States. The economies of scale allow for more ambition.

In addition, the CBC doesn't strike me as being the kind of place where you can put an individual stamp on things. You have to be absorbed, Borg-like, into the hive (resistance is futile!).

This is wild speculation on my part, but perhaps those are at least some of the reasons why Mr. Dube is beetling back south across the border.