With the debut of its redesigned website, French national daily newspaper Le Monde combined enhanced visual media and user participation in hopes of creating a more social news experience.
Le Monde.fr, the third most trafficked media site in France, launched its new format on Monday, as previously reported. Features of the site include more space for visual media, categorical tabs for each section of the news and a live chat window.
Editors Weblog spoke with Le Monde.fr Editor-in-Chief Alexis Delcambre about his primary goals for the newspaper in the online realm.
Social networking and the news
“The first objective is to improve the editorial formats that we’ve been experimenting with in our newsroom for a year,” Delcambre said.
One such new format is the “Live” feature, a chat window that appears on the home page of Le Monde.fr. On “Live,” users can ask questions of Le Monde journalists or make comments about certain topics, with journalists responding to their queries in real time. Delcambre said the feature is an innovation in France.
