David

Hi Fin24.comers

As far as site redesigns go, the Fin24.com reinvention went pretty darn well. Of course, we’re still working through some of the problems we’ve spotted, as well as those issues users are having. I urge you to keep the comments coming. We still want to know what’s working for you and what isn’t quite up to scratch. (Write to davidm@fin24.com or make a comment on this blog.)

In the meantime, here’s a recap of what’s been happening with the redesign including some of the things we heard from you, and how we’ve responded:

- You said you missed having the currency exchanges on the home page so we put them back into the front page indicators.

- One reader asked why we include the CAC and DAX indices, but omit the FTSE 100 Index. We’re looking into getting the FTSE. It’s a tad expensive but we might well make it available. Let me know as more demand makes a better case for it.

- The portfolios and portfolio mailers gave us quite a bit of heartburn and you too judging by the response we had to bungled information we provided, and stuff we left out. This included omitting the daily gains/losses of your portfolios. Those problems are fixed, although we are still picking up localised issues with one or two users. If you’re one of them, please let me know.

- Finweek archives are available to subscribers. Again, there were problems with this but sorted now.

- We have had some crazy technical glitches popping up from time-to-time such as having the wrong dates on Sens announcements. That’s fixed but again, if you see something that doesn’t look right, let us know. We’re standing by.

- The registration page and ‘Remember Me’ functions on the Fin24.com homepage are resolved. If anybody is having residual problems, you know who to contact.

- Technical analysis is now available to all subscribers. In case you didn’t know, there are also free articles you can read and a daily update which is available to subscribers. Technical analysis is pretty specialised info but a portion of our users do enjoy it. If you want to know more click here.

Our readership figures are looking good. There’s no doubt newsflow, by which I mean the credit crunch, enusing banking crisis and loss of confidence in financial markets, has created huge interest in business. While painful to the financial sector, it’s been helpful to our readership figures! So instead of the usual decline in readership after a site relaunch, we’ve enjoyed the serendipity of a readership boom.

Newsflow apart, the redesign has been extremely well-received, particularly some of its improved functions.

- For example, the fact all article comments are contained on one page is, we believe, stimulating a lot more user activity. You can also report comments directly to me. Those of you who have will see we respond to them personally.

- Interest in the Money Clinic, a section we launched earlier this year to help consumers in these difficult financial times, has literally shot through the roof. Ana Monteiro and Helena Wasserman – originators of the project – are rushed off their feet. But keep them coming. We’re only too glad to help.

- We always thought our markets coverage was one of the most under-estimated and hidden parts of the publication. It looks like we’re seeing user interest in our markets section now that it’s easier to see what’s going on there.

That’s a flavour of our experience since launching the redesigned site almost a month ago. Some downs, but many more ups and, as I keep saying, this is only the start of Fin24.com’s strategy to grow in the online business publishing space.

Of course, all this doesn’t happen by itself.

The Fin24.com team of Ana Monteiro, Fin24.com’s deputy editor, Hayley Goodwin, our business development manager, Riaan van Niekerk, chief technical officer, and his team including the near-indestructible Alexis van der Merwe has been superb beyond words.

What a breaktakingly massive and invaluable contribution these special individuals have made, and at the cost of many sleepless nights, 14-hour days and weekend stacked upon weekend. It’s an honour to be working with people of this quality.

Cheers

David

PS - 24.com has set in motion an intriguing survey of Africa’s largest blogging community, and I’d like all Finblogs users to contribute by taking a little time to complete the survey. And if you do, you could be the happy recipient of some pretty cool prizes including generous monthly supplies of DVDs by pushplay, SA’s largest DVD home delivery service. If you want to know more simply click. It’ll be worth it.

Here’s what our caption stories look like. Apart from the fact a large picture of this quality is easier on the eye in the whole front page look, it’s also a different way at providing content.

The blurb below the caption clicks through to a fully-fledged story and because we’ve a choice of world pictures, it’ll allow us to present world business news as well as local thus providing some diversity to our strong local investment focus.

When you click through to the story, you’ll see a different article page than in the old version. Again, it’s cleaner and sharper but there’s more convenient related and top story links not to mention the market snapshot info when we’re writing about a listed firm.

If the snapshot information is not enough – it provides share price action that day and the market cap – you can always click through to the data pages where we’ve made massive changes. Hayley will mention this when she blogs about the data.

Back on the home page, and I want to direct you to the Breaking News section.

This section provides the volume of news to which you’re already accustomed to reading on the site. But note it’s also wire news. All our original copy goes into the main article positions on the page.

If a story breaks in Breaking News that’s extremely strong, and we need to highlight it quickly (before our writers can get to it) we’ll place it in the top article positions to provide it with prominence. Rest assured, we’ll be seeking our own analysis and value-add on the story within minutes.

The Breaking News section will turn (update) quicker than the top positions so remember to keep coming back to the site to get the story updates.

David

Not specially perturbing, but you can see why reverse engineering online titles/products into mainstream print is causing a bit of heartburn, even in the US.

This year’s AMC is, in true melodramatic style, ‘Unleashing the Power’.

Not quite sure what this might be but I get the impression print titles in the US – in this case weekly and monthly magazines – are a stage when they feel they not only understand how to integrate online but are in position to start exploiting it.

But having sat in one of the pre-conference meetings – one specially convened for independent publishers – I picked up a few tones suggesting some were still reaching for the worry beads.

Was there a hint of evangelism when one speaker burred: “I guess most of you are wondering how we’re going to cope with the internet. But online is a great opportunity. It really is.” Okay. Let’s unleash the power then.

Anyway, more on this conference later, but a couple of interesting trends have popped up in a few early presentations. 

One was that the AMC wants print titles to make the brand the centre of the business around which different type of media float like moons around a major planet. Nothing new in this, I guess.

But I heard another perhaps more interesting observation, and that was for magazines, in establishing an online presence, was to be platform agnostic. Open sourcing technology was something I noticed at the Financial Times.

More later.
D