NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Wall Street Journal Digital Network tomorrow will unveil a significant redesign focusing on improvements to content, user experience and advertising opportunities for its flagship site, The Wall Street Journal Online (www.wsj.com).
Overall changes and enhancements to WSJ.com include new design and layout, improved navigation, expanded content and features available for all users, as well as multiple benefits exclusive to WSJ.com's more than one million subscribers, including Journal Community, a new Management section and expanded What's News and Heard on the Street content. Additional tools and content sets will continue to roll out over the coming months.
"The redesign is a crucial moment in the e-evolution of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones," said Robert Thomson, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Company. "We will be providing general readers with an easier-to-navigate selection of great reporting and fine writing, while our fast-growing global business audience will have access to a far greater range of analysis and intelligence. In coming months, we will further embellish our content triptych, providing readers with free, premium and super-premium information that they will be able to customize to suit their personal and professional needs."
WSJ.com has experienced significant traffic growth, with an 84% increase in visitors year-to-date over 2007 and a 112% increase from the same period in 2006, according to Omniture.
"Our WSJ.com redesign objective was clear -- provide our users with a comprehensive experience that grants access to news and information on their terms while providing a unique platform for advertisers to reach our highly affluent and influential digital audience," said Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.
With the new design, those elements of WSJ.com available only to subscribers are clearly marked with a "key" icon, though non-subscribers will be able to access a preview of the content. Several content areas -- including politics, general news, sports, travel, fashion, personal finance, food and drink, Journal Women and more -- as well as all blogs, video, photos, podcasts, interactive graphics and content from the recently launched WSJ. glossy magazine remain free to all users as they were prior to the redesign.
Highlights of the redesign available to all users include:
* Overall new look and feel with modern design and streamlined,
horizontal navigation as well as more varied home and section
pages;
* Expanded content in small business, technology, U.S. and world
news, politics, personal finance and lifestyle categories;
* The introduction of the "Newsreel," a visual and text-driven
tool atop all story pages highlighting the most important stories
in each major section of the site with direct navigation among
them;
* New video player, photo slide show viewer and interactive
graphics;
* Redesigned "story pages" provide related analysis, additional
content, video, audio, graphics and more;
* The newly launched WSJ.com Mobile Reader for BlackBerry(r)
smartphones.
In addition to the new benefits and features available to all users, WSJ.com subscribers will also receive exclusive access to:
* What's News -- Expanded business and financial news and analysis,
industry and market news and continued access to personalization
tools, such as My Online Journal, including customized news and
markets feeds and personal stock portfolios;
* Journal Community -- The new section connects subscribers in a
topic-based professional network where they can comment on
articles; ask questions of subject matter experts, including the
Journal's editorial team and special guests; join discussion
groups and make personal and professional connections;
* Management -- A new section devoted to management, including news,
trends, ideas and advice. Features stories from the print Journal,
including the Monday Theory & Practice column, as well as online-
only features, including articles, videos, podcasts and
commentary on breaking management news;
* Heard on the Street -- Expanded and re-launched column and
section full of real-time commentary on business and investment
ideas;
* Archive -- An expanded archive of stories from across the site
and the paper.
About The Wall Street Journal Online
The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ.com, published by Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com), is the leading provider of business and financial news and analysis on the web with more than one million subscribers and 17 million visitors per month. Launched in 1996, WSJ.com is the flagship site of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and attracts a rapidly growing audience of industry leaders and influencers. The award-winning site provides in-depth business news and financial information 24 hours a day, including breaking business and technology news and analysis from around the world. It draws on the Dow Jones network of nearly 1,900 business and financial news staff -- the largest network of business and financial journalists in the world.
The Wall Street Journal "Online" logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2637