New look for Reuters.com

Posted by Helena Humphrey on December 7, 2009 at 10:40 AM

Thursday night a refreshed Reuters.com went live complete with bolder logo, red background and refined toolbar, including a selection of pages entitled News & Markets, Sectors & Industry and Analysis & Opinion, with increased political coverage and comment. According to Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing for the group, the shift in perspective, with a greater emphasis on politics, will revolve around macro-economic trends. "The new site reflects all the assets that were brought together with Thomson's acquisition of Reuters in the spring of 2008. We regard this as more than just a facelift" Bowen said.

The revamp comes as news wires find demands for their services significantly reduced, and are left reeling from the effects of the Internet revolution on traditional journalism. Bloomberg, the Associated Press and Reuters have all made moves to attract the attention of a more general audience in recent months, with Reuters planning a $1bn investment to boost its multimedia capabilities to keep up with competitors. Bowen told the Guardian that "presenting targeted content" was the focus of the redesign, in light of the fact that the company has "only been in consumer publishing for the past six years, and the old version of the site reflected that."

Aside from bringing in a more general audience, the revamp is of course also a bid to catch the attention of all-important advertisers. Aaron Shapiro, a partner of digital design company Huge responsible for the revamp insisted that a conscious effort was made to steer clear of "large pulldowns and rollovers that are being promoted by the Online Publishers Association" in order to make the site more user friendly. Reuters may have taken a gamble with fewer advertisers, but hopes its clearer format and less cluttered ad space will also be a more exclusive one - and therefore be met with higher ad revenue.

Source: Guardian