BBC News gets social media overhaul
Clicked onto BBC News website this morning and seen it’s be redesigned.
Front and centre to me, is the incorporation of big bold sharing buttons above right and at the bottom of each article.
They include Twitter, Facebook “Recommend”, and slightly hidden, Delicious, Reddit and Stumbleupon.
By using the Facebook button users will be able to see if any of their friends have clicked the button too.
I found one of my school chums had given a thumbs up to the TED/Milo article which saves me having to share it with him as I know he’s already seen it.
When I asked for people’s opinions from my Twitter account, I got the following responses:
MariamCook @MelCarson I like how the new #BBC news home page ‘Most popular’ box splits into shared, read and watched / listened
rsalmonuk @MelCarson Hi Mel – I love the way the BBC have made the Facebook and Twitter share so easy. A good benchmark for folk to follow…
socialrecruiter @MelCarson Looks good, but too much whitespace on right of story, could have had drag/drop on homepage as page is too long #bbcnews
VisualScript @MelCarson I think they took a lot of design cues from CNN’s homepage.
I think the call out of the “Most popular” box is a good one.
Great to see what resonates with people to actually read versus share.
Surprised that the sharing Twitter functionality doesn’t spark up a shortened URL so they can track traffic via analytics.
What do you think of the new site? Is it social enough?
Cheers
All Comments
Not at all sure about this redesign — i don;t like the masthead. Some on twitter are saying it looks a little dated. I tend to agree. The social media share buttons are also given little prominence as if the BBC did not want to share.
The BBC News website redesign is certainly more of an evolution rather than revolution. It does tick the right boxes when it comes to web design in that there is now more white space, more video and the ability to share news content across more social networking channels than previously. But in many ways I was expecting more and for it to be more exciting. It remains up for debate whether budget cuts across the BBC had an impact or it simply didn’t want to incur the wrath of loyal readers who don’t like significant change. That said the BBC remains the best news site on the web and, with more sites looking to charge for content, that can only be positive for web surfers everywhere.
I wrote about their last (I think) update in March 2008 on Media Week:
http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/digitales/archive/2008/03/31/bbc-launches-new-look-news–sport-sites.aspx
Bit of a debate back then too…
bout time
Delighted new applications on new BBC News website.,
I am reading it’s latest news from face book&from twitter websites.
I am a regular writer by comments on several subjects to the world famous news websites.
New top level management team from BBC net works are creating&expanding it’s bases i’n &around the globe.,
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