Publishing newspapers online

The Huffington Post has turned five, and is enjoying huge successes. The Huffington Post began in 2005 as an online news site, a twenty first century newspaper. It has news and comment, hosts blogs and publishes a wide variety of opinion pieces from a swathe of commentators. Since then it has gained a large audience community, expanded in scope and employees, and has branched out into local versions which challenge the traditional media.

The success of the HuffPo is a direct challenge to the traditional newspaper industry. It keeps its production costs low, minimises the costs of content and offers broad appeal. It is a new way of presenting the news to a different generation – available only online - with no hard copy version. There are lessons to be learnt here by the traditional newspaper industry, which is still fumbling with the best way to embrace the digital age.

With hard copy circulation and readership falling, classified ad revenue plummeting and general trend away from traditional news sources newspapers have been slow to embrace the online environment. Often the focus is on transferring the contents of the hard copy paper online, without considering the intricacies of the new technology. Newspapers need to accept the reality that the internet is here to stay and to start working out how to use it well. To do this they need to design specifically for an online environment.

References:
Greenslade, R 2010, Six good lessons from HuffPo's success, Greenslade Blog, guardian.co.uk
Wikipedia - The Huffington Post