And here’s what they say about it on their blog.
It’s very big.
Wired.com relaunches
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Tag Archives: website relaunch
Trinity Mirror to revamp local websites
According to Holdthefrontpage.co.uk Trinity Mirror is to upgrade its sites with “breaking news, video, audio, blogs and user-generated content.”
This includes a training programme with “a series of week-long video journalism courses and a series of one-day multimedia workshops, which will be attended by more than 70 journalists in the North West region before being rolled out across the division.”
Guardian wants ‘proper reporters’ for video and plans to invest 15 million online
Journalism.co.uk reports on The Guardian’s plans to invest £15m in its online operations and ‘big plans’ for video – “to take advantage of its advertising potential” (that old chestnut). Apparently Guardian Films, its television production company, has grown “rapidly over recent months to a point where it now broke even”. It seems broadcast-trained journalists can now look to the print sector for employment too:
“Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger told conference that £1 million would be invested in video production and hiring experienced production staff.
“Currently self-taught reporters and camera people put projects together.
“We don’t think we can go forward without proper resources and reporters,” he said.
Meanwhile, the move to use the web to target overseas markets continures, with the Guardian intending “to launch an American version of its Comment is free portal as part of its bid to be the world’s leading voice of liberalism.”
USATODAY.com relaunches
USATODAY.com has relaunched with, reportedly, more prominent user generated content:
MediaPost reports: “The revamped site, which went live Saturday, enables reader comments on each story and solicits users’ input in the form of photos and movie reviews. USA Today also is aping Digg, the new Netscape and other social news sites that allow readers to determine which stories are most important.”
Editor & Publisher explains: The site has incorporated technology developed by Pluck Corporation to “create a community around the news,” according to a release. Using the new features, users can see other news sources directly on the USA Today site; see others readers’ reactions to stories; recommend content and comments to each other; interact using comments and in public forums, upload digital photographs to the site; write arts and culture reviews of their own; and interact more with the newspaper’s staff.”
There certainly is a lot of UGC there – but the front page would benefit from being slimmed down from the whacking great five pages you have to scroll down (usability expert Jakob Nielsen says three Page Downs should be the maximum) – the best stuff takes two Page Downs to get to – photo galleries, video, blogs, and interactive graphics.
You can also read USA Today’s own blog post on the relaunch.
UPDATE (Apr 16 2007): The relaunch has been quite a success, as IIN reports “a dramatic 380% increase in registrations. Readers are also spending more time per visit on the site.”
I love MEN (for purely journalistic reasons)
Sorry, I couldn’t resist that headline. The Manchester Evening News (MEN) has been relaunched and – forgive me for not knowing which bits are new and which are not, but this really does look very good. Aside from the lovely clean navigation there’s clearly some attention been paid to the strengths of the web:
- Have Your Say is one of the top boxes
- There’s a ‘most read/commented’ box as well;
- ‘your pictures’ and ‘your comments’ are prominent links,
- there’s a raft of blogs.
- There’s a ‘community’ section,
- and audio and video (yes, they’re under ‘interactivity’ which isn’t really that true, but where else would they put it?). At the moment this is still ‘journalist reads headlines over still images’ but at least they’re plugging the forums (not that I could find them). The audio shows promise – an interview with Michael Ball includes a link to the full 12 minute audio.
MediaWeek reports the site has also dumped pop-ups:
“As part of the revamp, which has been a year in development, the site will also introduce more user- generated content and simplify its navigation after complaints it was too cluttered.
“The MEN’s head of online editorial, Sarah Hartley, said the dumping of pop-up and pop-under ads was a big move for the site.”
Daily Mirror catches relaunch fever
Another week, another relaunch – this time it’s The Daily Mirror website, which MediaWeek reports:
“now hosts three embedded video players featuring content in the three core areas, accessible through a slide-down video screen.
“The site will feature breaking sports news and live results, and celebrity gossip and videos under the 3am brand.
“It also offers blogs by Daily Mirror journalists, user-generated content, message forums and an archive of Mirror content from its 103-year history.
“The relaunch was led by MGN Digital, which earlier this week announced a tie-up with video content specialist Roo Group to develop a video portal for the Sunday Mirror website, www.sundaymirror.co.uk.
More behavioural targeting for advertisers as Times revamps website
MediaWeek has lots of blah about the Times revamp meaning ‘upgrading’ audio and video (whatever that means) and “more analysis” (you need to ‘revamp’ a website to do that?). But what’s this hidden in par 2?
“Zach Leonard, digital media publisher of Times Online, said the site would also offer more contextual and behavioural targeting for advertisers and sponsors.”
Sounds like that’s the real headline story here.
UPDATE (Feb 6): There’s an ‘ask the designers’ feature at Times Online where they explain the process of the redesign, including the reason for that strange lime green. Georgia works well but it is very ‘now’ and may start to date in a few years…
UPDATE (Feb 9): There’s even more at Press Gazette on the systems that are being used to integrate print and online, to handle comments, and the future plans around video and archive content.
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