The Herald does not load for for me as well - It looks like the Herald didn't test their site with OSX and Safari, which is amusing given that the Aussie boss of APN digital has a mac.

Also annoying is that the old links I had to 'Business' and 'Sport' just stopped working - no redirect here.

Looks like this was rushed out for Christmas, just in time for us to all leave for the sun.

Looks like NZHerald's slow loading woes are having an effect on their traffic...
They are losing page impressions versus stuff, while their unique browser numbers are holding steady.

For me, viewing from overseas, two sites stood out in the late 90's - stuff.co.nz for simple, quickly readable news, and stats.govt.nz for a wealth of free data.

Sadly we are many years behind the rest of the world - xtra is appalling (compare it with Australia's 9MSN offering) , Ferrit = flying pig 2006, Stuff seemingly hasn't changed since launch and our eCommerce, Trade Me aside, is less developed than 1999 in the USA..