Web Watch: Redesign brings Web site into new age

The current version of our Web site is closing in on its third year, and in that time, the industry of online news has experienced radical changes.

Gone are the days of simply using a site as an engine to distribute the printed newspaper. Even posting daily Web headlines is not enough.

Today’s Web readers expect more.

On March 11, several co-workers and I attended a conference in Kansas City that tackled that very subject. The daylong event, titled “The New Business Coverage: From Blogs to Multimedia to ’Round-the-Clock News,” was offered by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and hosted by The Kansas City Star.

The message was clear: Use your Web site to develop a community for your readers. Connect to them, and give them options. Branch out from being a “news” site and become an “ideas” site.

To accomplish this, news sites are engaging readers by letting them post comments on articles, submit their photographs to online galleries and list events on community calendars. Readers are able to customize their news experience by subscribing to RSS (real simple syndication) feeds and by joining social news sites such as digg.com and del.icio.us.

News sites also are slowly but steadily – and cautiously – entering the blogosphere. Once seen as anti-journalistic, blogs are popping up on news Web sites as supplemental content. They’re becoming the story behind the story, providing anecdotes and quicker updates on developing news in a more casual format to which readers can relate. Blogs are great dialogue-starters, and they’re a major component of building a community on a Web site.

You’re seeing an inundation of new multimedia on Web sites, too. In addition to the written articles we’re used to, there’s a flood of video, audio, graphics, maps, slideshows and downloadable documents to go with them.

All of this is playing into an attitude shift in newsrooms across the world – and that new attitude has made its way to SBJ.

A new direction

This summer, sbj.net will undergo its biggest transformation yet.

SBJ’s Web site committee, which I head up, has been hard at work for about six months mapping out the Web site’s new direction.

The mission of sbj.net – to provide up-to-the-minute, accurate and relevant business news – will not change, but it will expand.

Early this year, we started putting our ideas on paper – or, more accurately, on the computer screen. After several months of drafting and revising, editorial designer Aaron Scott’s basic site layout is complete.

Now, the nitty-gritty programming stage has begun.

By early this summer, we’ll be ready to tweak and test the site, and in mid- to late summer, we’ll roll out the finished product.

The redesign process has been overwhelming, eye-opening and exciting. I’m learning new things every single day, and it’s a fascinating educational experience. There’s nothing like on-the-job training when faced with a new and challenging task.

It needs to be said that the current sbj.net has been a success, and it’s something we’re very proud of. I’ll be sad to bid it goodbye. When we launched the site with its new look three years ago, we rightfully gained a piece of the Internet pie, and we’ve held our own, even winning a first place award for Best Web Site from the Alliance of Area Business Publications in 2006.

As we edge closer to the relaunch, I encourage you to contact me about what you’d like to see on the new-and-improved site. What are your news-reading habits? What do you look for in a Web site?

I look forward to opening up a discussion with our readers. It’ll be a great step in continuing to form that community.

Springfield Business Journal Online Editor Dee Dee Jacobs can be reached at djacobs@sbj.net.[[In-content Ad]]