BusinessWeek Readies Another Site Redesign, With E-Paper Paid Version
This story was written by David Kaplan.
As part of BusinessWeek.com's latest website redesign, the economic news mag will offer an e-paper version to subscribers, Mediaweek reports. The offering is more about giving subscribers something a little extra in terms of the presentation, as the content on the site will remain the same.
BusinessWeek.com, which had its last major revamp in October 2007, then sought to emphasize its community offerings alongside a long list of nearly a dozen sections, which all include an even wider collection of sub-channels. This time around, BusinessWeek.com's news will be divided into three buckets: breaking news, analysis and community. More after the jump
As all magazines struggle with the recession, the business mag category has been particularly tested this year. As Cond Nast Portfolio was killed as a print vehicle two months ago after seeing Q1 ad pages decline 60 percent, BusinessWeek's's ad pages performance was second worst, declining 39.8 percent, compared to Fortune's 26.3 percent slide, The Economist's 18.8 percent fall and Forbes' 15 percent drop, according to the Publishers Information Bureau's figures.
To try to break through the category's clutter, BusinessWeek has been trying to present itself as a contrarian on the economythe view in a special double issue stresses "rational optimism" about the current situation. Although its redesign doesn't seem to emphasize any new ad-friendly positions as it banks more on appealing to subscribers, The Economist is going even further in betting on subscribers over advertisers. As Mediaweek notes, The Economist will soon test a luxury offshoot in the U.S. of a mag currently available in Europe called Intelligent Life. At least for right now, considering the fact that the ad market for luxury marketers is still extremely weak, quarterly Intelligent Life will not be ad-supported. Instead, it will sell for $10 an issue, attempting to test the limits and possibilities for paid editorial content.
By David Kaplan