This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, October 21
TAKEAWAY: The name Newsweek is one we associate with constant change and evolution, which is why we are not surprised that the newsmagazine has premiered a new look for its website, or is it a new and additional website?
The latest version of website (left), and the more feature-oriented one that continues to exist as well
Look & feel is different for each of the Newsweek websites
Newsweek is in the news itself again. This time the beleaguered newsmagazine’s website has been redesigned (or rethought?).
Yes, www.newsweek.com has undergone yet another “revision” and in this new reincarnation, Newsweek seems to be putting emphasis on part of its name: News.
This is a clean, almost minimalist, but easy to follow news website, with headlines, summaries and photos. It’s plain vanilla but an easy to digest one.
So, whatever happened to the more visually seductive and feature driven website of not long ago, one that we liked so much and showed here as an example of innovative (especially in its treatment of advertising)?
Well, wait a minute.
That website is still here, with the date of the weekly edition of Newsweek at the top, and with the same more visually dynamic presentation.
Perhaps the goal is to let the users decide: lean forward and newsy or lean back and more feature driven?
Will the two ever become part of one?
Shouldn’t they be part of one same website?
What’s the strategy here?
Weekend reads:
20 Tips to Turbocharge your Mobile Efforts
http://mobilefirstnews.com/post/64315277978/20-tips-to-turbocharge-your-mobile-efforts
My favorite:
Have the editors, producers and designers take a mobile-first approach when planning their coverage of a big news event. Look at mobile plans first.
And I would add:
Don’t let anyone in the session who has already written the story for print. Real mobile first philosophy works best when the story is in embryo, and NOT written for any platform yet.
New York Magazine considers going biweekly
http://nypost.com/2013/10/16/new-york-magazine-considers-going-biweekly/
One more bit of evidence that frequency of publication continues to be an item of great interest and discussion in newsrooms across the world.
Or, as Reed Reibstein, Garcia Media art director/project manager, put it to me when he sent this link:
So daily newspapers will become weeklies, weekly magazines will become bimonthlies or monthlies … So, what happens to monthlies? Do they become quarterlies?
And I may add:
Perhaps all of the above will find a daily edition via smartphones and tablets, a good way to enhance the brand, offer curated content in small doses, and be present in the readers’ lives in ways other than the “main event” publication. Already happening in some quarters, by the way, and considered by others as options for the future.