USAToday.com Turns Readers into Users
The re-launch of USAToday.com, the website for one of the flagship newspapers of the Gannett publishing group, includes more than just bigger pictures and a few gradients. The site now also includes a number of social features including reader comments, Digg.com style voting, citizen journalism photo uploading, and user profile pages.
“Our ambition is to help readers quickly and easily make sense of the world around them by giving them a wider view of the news of the day and connecting them with other readers who can contribute to their understanding of events,” wrote editors Ken Paulson, Kinsey Wilson, and John Hillkirk in an announcement to readers last week.
To get people reading more news, the company has improved the site’s search capabilities, provided a “most popular” section containing the stories that are the most read and the ones with the most user votes, and has installed a special queue for stories produced exclusively by USA Today reporters.
Users will be able to let their friends on USA Today.com see what they’re reading by clicking the “Recommend” button at the top of each article. Recommendations, along with comments, Pluck-powered blog entries, and uploaded news photos, will appear on their profile pages.
Paulson, Wilson, and Hillkirk are actively asking users to send feedback about the new features to let them know if USA Today really is giving readers a new way to read the news online.
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