Dive summary:
- USA Today announced an overhaul of its website design, with what some say resembles a tablet experience more than a traditional website.
- David Payne, chief of digital at Gannett, said he led the redesign because he was "pissed off and frustrated about how news sites had not evolved," and wants to take advantage of computers since he believes they "are much more powerful than televisions.
- The change is also an attempt to create a more compelling advertising opportunity, giving them full page digital ads to make an impact. These types of ads, says publisher Larry Kramer, are "the future."
From the article:
Thirty years after it introduced a new type of colorful, graphical storytelling to the newspaper world, USA Today will unveil a redesigned print publication on Friday that pushes further in that direction, and a complete overhaul of its website that it hopes will produce a more fluid, app-like experience that some would say resembles the Flipboard mobile app.
The changes to its website, which will launch in beta on Saturday, feel the most drastic. USA Today sites registered 38.7 million visitors in August, up 48% from 26.1 million a year ago. And USA Today Sports Media Group, a subset of that overall number, grew 133% from 11.6 million to 27 million over that same period thanks in large part to the January acquisition of the Big Lead Sports network of blogs.
