Welcome to Mediaite, the Next Generation

As you can probably tell, Mediaite has just emerged from a serious facelift. Not a fundamental metamorphosis, but a somewhat transformative nip and tuck which allows us to compete in the digital world circa 2015/2016.

The biggest changes from a user perspective are on the front page, where we will seek to promote more topics and longer form pieces. A box below the top 3 curated stories highlights a series of connected stories that our editors feel is worth a special look. It may be a hot topic, a person in the news, or some other theme. Those five stories appear chronologically within that box and effectively replace the “top shelf” on the front page. You will recall we used to have 5 curated stories promoted atop every page including the front one. Now, that shelf of highlighted stories still exists on the individual story pages, but not the front page.

You will also notice that at the bottom of the front page we have a section called “in depth” which will allow us to keep a more analytical piece on the front page longer. We are investing more in thought provoking journalism heading into 2016 and hope this will help highlight those efforts.

The Mediaite front page is a critical piece of real estate for us. Almost 25% of our monthly page views come to that page (and almost 1/3 of the unique pageviews) and the total number of views there have increased by nearly 50% in the past year. Most sites (including this one) have seen social media become the dominant force directing readers and viewers to individual stories. For most others however, the side effect of that has been to minimize the significance and volume of their front page traffic. We have bucked that trend and see more and more people coming to check out “the latest from Mediaite.” It is for that reason that we have not overhauled that first page into a purely magazine style format as many others have chosen to do.

I think it obvious to any regular Mediaite reader that all the pages have been refreshed and updated with a cleaner look. We have also significantly upgraded our advertising capabilities and software, which will allow our partners a more useful and immersive experience with custom campaigns and better viewability across the board.

Our upcoming site Lawnewz.com will mirror this redesign and eventually almost of our sites will likely move to this new presentation.

Sean Panzera, who did such a great job creating many of the design aspects, described the changes in five points:

1. It’s more responsive.
   – We worked hard to ensure that the Mediaite experience you’ve grown to know and love is consistent and easy to navigate across all platforms.
2. It’s more up to date.
   – The stories are easier than ever to access.
3. It’s easier to read.
   – We’ve updated Mediaite with a fresh new look that makes reading the content you enjoy more enjoyable than ever.
4. It’s easier to love.
   – Sharing content you enjoy is easier than ever with addition of the new social sidebar on articles.
5. It’s getting better every day.
   – We’re committed to bringing you the best possible experience in your search for media and political news on the web. We’re listening. Let us know how we can make better.

   But a special congrats and thanks goes to the indefatigable Zack Brand, who led this terrific effort and completed it in precisely the time frame that he promised.

   This is a critical time for Mediaite. We once again welcomed 6 million unique visitors to the site last month (certainly not our biggest month ever but considering the small size of our staff still quite a feat), we are earning more in ad dollars than ever before and expect both to grow significantly as we head closer to the official election season.

   Thank you for your continuing support and as Sean mentioned, please send us any feedback on the redesign. Change is always controversial and I am sure there are tweaks to be made but we are also confident that this is a big and positive step forward.

   This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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