Just yesterday, ABCNews.com revealed a sleek new look. The clean design caters to consumers who are increasingly turning to mobile devices and digital technology to stay up to speed on the latest news. The team at ABCNews.com created a design that now showcases more live video, editorial features and social trends.
Some of the features built into the new, modern look include:
- “Latest Headlines”: A list of top stories designed to visually reference a Twitter feed.
- Live Blog and Video Thumbnail: Lists breaking news events at the top of the Latest Headlines feed. During live video events a streaming video thumbnail is placed within the newsfeed, already performing 150 percent better than the previous live stream.
- “Social Climber”: A daily editorial franchise that highlights and explains the top stories trending across search and social. Located on the right rail of the home page, “Social Climber” is periodically updated throughout the day to reflect the changing topics that users care about most.
- Live Blog & Other Promotion: Live blogs are now featured on the home page to drive more users to live content and the breaking news feed.
My favorite new feature is the topic-focused navigation tool at the top of the page that highlights trending stories as you scroll. Already, this and the re-designed story pages have successfully engaged users and increased social sharing across the site. Matter of fact, early testing of new social features revealed that social sharing has increased by 63 percent compared to the previous site. Many of these new features also further enhance the website’s commenting platform that launched in May, as well as the live blogging tool that offers real-time story updates.
ABC News also recently launched a new lifestyle section that includes daily headlines, videos and in-depth features on a variety of lifestyle topics from travel and food to parenting and fashion. And the team promises to continue developing new, original entertainment franchises.
I’ve watched ABC for as long as I can remember, and it’s exciting to know that the network still sets the standard when it comes to delivering the news.