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News24 – the road to redesign

// May 31st, 2009 // Analysis

The News24 redesign is not ground-breaking or incredible, it’s not original, it’s not going to win a prize for innovation – but it is profoundly significant in SA online history and for the News24 business.

It’s a very emotional moment that the news News24 has finally gone live. I arrived to head up News24 in January 2005 and at that point I pushed to do a redesign. That was then when News24 had 380,000 domestic local users. Now we are approaching 1.5 million.

In effect the reason why this launch is so significant is that SA’s leading site by a long stretch has remained the same for the past 4-5 years essentially stuck in the web1.0 era.

The main protagonist for this has been technical. When I requested it those years ago we were about to end an expensive license agreement with our content management system (CMS) providers and was asked to “hang in there”. Then we stayed on it much longer than anticipated – until now : ) In hindsight we should have done it then but then FINALLY after much pain the tech department delivered a new CMS to the business with the re-launch of Wheels24 in June 2008.

That set the path for News24’s redesign. Since News24 is so important we want to roll out a few other brands on the platform first, so news24 had to join the queue and it is finally here.

In fact 90% of the redesign that went live today was put together by Jannie Momberg, Cathryn Reece and myself over a year ago and has been waiting on the back-burner since then. Gee, am I stoked to see those hours of debates have their pay-day.

So this is not just a redesign for news24 – in the back-office the editorial team finally have a much better CMS tool that is less clunky and more efficient. The new CMS is also more SEO friendly than its counterpart so we should see an increase in traffic. So, all round this is a benefit to the 360 view of the News24 business. News24 stalwart Elmarie Jack, who has been our night editor for as long as anyone can remember has already told me that half her job has disappeared just getting content to publish. My hope is that extra 50% of time will go some way to improving the quality of editorial.

Often redesigns can break a product but I do not believe that this has been to the detriment of News24 as a brand and as a commercial product because it has always been about exposing breaking news – which the old site has done quite adequately and the redesign continues to do so. As long as your readers’ priorities are addressed then all should be cool by the pool.

That is also the main reason why News24 has continued to grow audience and revenue despite not updating the design. We have always stuck to and delivered what we do best.- “Breaking news.First.”

Some very quick thoughts on the redesign

I am sure many critics will look at News24 and superficially adjudge that there is nothing earth-shattering there. They are in parts right – but they would be missing the point totally.

The point is that News24 has the right to say that the site has evolved and taken the next step. The first of many.

I do not intend to write a review here as many will do that but here are a few points on the redesign,

The design brings to News24 the following benefits:

• A wider grid and palette to play with moving to a wider screen resolution
• Removal of a left navigation column which was little utilized by users, a waste of space and not wide enough to create decent resources.
• Opportunity for bigger better ad positions
• More openness, white space and larger txt
• A refreshed style all-round that opens the way for a more innovative template as illustrated in the special section for the recent elections.
• Tagging and better SEO
• The use of large and more impactful visuals in special sections
• A broader canvass to showcase multimedia work.
• Economisation of space (for eg the Weather, traffic, lottery element) – These new elements also open themselves more to sponsorship than before.
• Exposure of classifieds listings from Careers24, Property24, Wheels24, Netads24) since news and classifieds have always gone hand in hand.
• The “News you should know” is a good addition and could probably be given more prominence. The problem was that we update so fast and frequently, often important news can disappear quickly. This is a holding zone for stories that our editors think are important and people might look for.

There is a voice-over commentary on some of the thinking pre-launch from GM of Publishing Geoff Cohen here

You can read a note from editor Jannie Momberg here with regards the relaunch.

The road to redesign:

As I have said being at the helm for News24 to rise from 380.000 to over 1 million unique users as well as creating a profitable business at the time has always been a highlight for me. Witnessing the re-launch of a design that I was part of was a cherry on the top. Below are a few highlights and key people who have played an important role along the way.

People along the way:

Bryan Porter (@bryanporter)– My first editor at News24 and a huge asset to the business bringing creativity to the editorial process and the perfect compliment to a formidable team within the 24 Digital ranks. Bryan has since gone onto to be editor in chief of 24.com when it was formed – and then made the shift to commercial to launch and run our GoTravel24 venture which he is doing so far with success.

Jannie Momberg (@JannieMom)– Jannie was previously the News24 news editor and I was apprehensive about his ability as editor and am glad to admit that I was very wrong. Jannie had been hanging in the ranks for long enough and the break was perfect timing. He proved me wrong in every way and has emerged a strong editor who has lead the editorial team exceptionally well bringing his own stamp to the unit. It saddens me that Newspaper editors are known in the media and public circles whereas Jannie Momberg – editor of SA’s leading website – is little known. Another illustration of the significance of online media in the mix. A battle that we all continue to fight.

Russell Hanly – Our former CEO, Russell Hanly is as far as I am concerned one of the fathers of internet publishing in South Africa and my greatest mentor. Russell built the 24 brand in South Africa with his lieutenants – of which I was proud to be one. He never got the credit he deserved both internally and externally but those who have worked with him know that he is the real deal. A man who is astute, driven, fair and gutsy among many other qualities.

It has always astounded me that when some youngster launches a new web2.0 product that is not really going to go very far is hailed as a “Rockstar” – and people like Russell who slogged it out in the trenches to build an industry are ignored. Maybe hard work, determination and real results is not as sexy as glitzy innovation. But online business is a marathon not a race. Hanly is now bizarrely farming fruit outside George – which since I knew him had always been his dream. I guess Russell will also be sad that he was not there to be a part of the News24 re-launch. In many ways he was a part of it all. Respect.

JP Farinha – Another irony. Who has heard of JP Farinha? Well JP was GM of iafrica for a few years, then GM of MWEB studios and then commercial executive head of 24 under Russell Hanly. Now that Russell has gone farming JP was appointed CEO of 24.com –which makes him one of the most powerful people in SA internet. JP does not like the limelight and rightly so does not seem to feel the need to win public recognition – but 24 which is at a turning point could not have anyone better than JP. He knows the SA internet better than anyone I know and is rationale and pragmatic. He will make a huge impact on the business. One in a handful of people I truly respect. – Another important mentor of mine.

In memorium: Iaine Harper and Francois Krige – Sadly, in my time two fine gentlemen on the News24 night team passed on. – Both men with a long and dedicated career to News. Iaine our senior sub-editor was working at the Sunday Times under Ken Owen before I was born. Francois lived a life dedicated to sports journalism. Both loved and lived News24. They will always be sorely missed by all in the team who worked with them.

And of course to the entire editorial team who remain alive, have stayed and have left along the way.

New guard – Cathryn Reece’s leadership of Mynews24 has been a success and a credit. In every outfit you do need to bring in fresh young talent to balance the experience in the team and inject new ideas. As as ex-Rhodes Journalism graduate I do like Rhodes grads. We brought a few of them into the business. Verashni Pillay as a writer has played an important role in generating more original content for News24 and Lauren Clifford Holmes has brought something to the table to increase the quality and frequency of the Multimedia component of News24 which has improved immensely.

Geoff Cohen – Finally Geoff Cohen, a long time friend and colleague. Geoff was running Business Day and Financial Mail in the Johnnic (Avusa) group when I was running Sunday Times. So we have worked together since 2000. I remember having a drink with Geoff at Caprice in Camps Bay after he had an interview with Russel persuading him to bring his family to CT and join the 24 family. I am so grateful that he did because neither of us knew that he would take over my News24 portfolio at that time and there could be no none better to do it. Geoff knows how to make a business work minus the bullshit.

Geoff is the man at the helm of News24, as GM of Publishing, who brought about the redesign launch and in the end made everything come to fruition. All credit to him.

There were many people in all departments who in some way contributed, so if I did not mention you then sorry – but thanks!

Some cool milestones along the way

Hitting a million domestic users – The greatest highlight of my career so far. When I arrived at News24 the domestic audience size was 380,000. To reach the million was a milestone that will never be repeated and we continue to relish this accolade. I owe many thanks to the entire News24 team who are renowned in 24 central for getting their heads down and getting the job done. A very proud moment but now I need to seek out more milestones.

Mynews24 – Launching Mynews24 was a career highlight for me. It continues to grow from strength to strength. During my reign citizen journalism was a buzzword with the popularity at the time of Ohmynews.com and the Sunday Times folk launched a product called Reporter.co.za which was ill-conceived but still credit for trying. They hired in editors, tried to build a separate brand and drive it out of their print power. It did not work. I took a different approach. I noticed from comments that News24 readers had opinions and wanted to voice them. We simply created a platform for people to write this opinion and gain a little recognition along the way. The model was simple. We accepted submissions and selected those to be published because we wanted to maintain the brand proposition of offering quality content. That is why we intentionally did not build a stand-alone brand and kept it tightly wrapped with News24. For this reason we did not get public acclaim for innovation because it is viewed as a part of the amorphous mass that is News24. In fact the section quickly had over 100,000 users per month, more than what we had in our paid columnist section. So obviously our readers were in many cases more interested in what each other had to say than the likes of Jon Qwelane, Chris Roper and co. Far more readers than Mail and Guardian Thought Leader has achieved to date.

It worked brilliantly largely due to the dedication of Cathryn Reece, a youngster I decided to take a chance on. She gave the product a human face interacting constantly with citizen writers on how they could improve and write better. She still spearheads that initiative for us and has grown immensely to also play a major role in the redesign of the new site.

The greatest success of Mynews24 is that cheap advertising inventory is created with a higher margin than areas where we pay to generate content. The initial vision was that we could “Web2.0” the experience which has not yet happened due to dev limitations. When it does the project should explode.

And …..To the techs (who always get forgotten)

And finally huge thanks to the technical people who made it all happen. The CMS crew under Mike Needham and Peter Gerber who set the scene by delivering the new CMS last year and then Paolo Stermin -who has been the key in all news24 developments – and his team who delivered as well as Mike Brown and his design team. The core design work was done by Phil Langley who translated business needs with skill.

All of the technical teams operated under the leadership of Tim Gregory who has personally been involved in the details of the project non-stop for about 3 years  and outlasted most of the people working on it.

He rightfully added (via comment below) that “None of this would be happening without Cindy Gordon (who drew all the CMS interfaces in pencil before coding started), Lyndon King, Grant Fourie, Anneke Bosman and Darryl Jacobs who have taken the 24 group through 5 successful site migrations.”

Last but not least the Ops team – Emile Fourie, Eduard Strauss, Razeen Brown, Michelle Coetzee, Giulio di Giannatale, Ryaan Richardson, Breyten Borman and Ryan Psaros were all intimately involved in making this a success under the leadership of Gregg Saunders.

Jewel in the crown

Geoff and I have always joked because I referred to News24 as the “jewel in the crown” and he ripped me off until he now runs News24 and seems to agree. The truth is that without News24 the rest of the 24 brands would have a tough time surviving. Breaking news is the hook and bait. It is the most important asset in the 24 stable beyond compare – so redesigning and tampering with the Jewel is not taken lightly internally.

New era

So now that all is said and done it is finally round 2 for News24 in a mixed climate with economic downturn effecting advertising in all mediums juxtaposed by cost effectiveness of digital  media  and the recent launch of Seacom – hopefully hailing the new broadband environment we have all been holding our breathe for over the past decade.

With the achievement of this milestone I am finally happy to bid farewell to my emotional involvement with News24 and welcome in a new era. Good luck guys.

Enjoy your Sunday

Elan

(Disclosure: Elan Lohmann was Publisher of News24.com from January 2005 until December 2007)