The Times newspaper and website launch has not only taken the Sunday Times brand from a weekly to daily platform, it has also “catapulted” Johnnic Communications into a new media era.

According to The Times, its website received over 2 million pageviews and over 5000 registered users, as well as over 500 comments posted about articles viewed on the site, in its first month.

“We are thrilled with the success of the new site as it is a positive improvement on the previous Sunday Times site. The objective is to create an interactive experience and reach a broader audience,” says Colin Daniels, The Times new media strategy manager.

“Our audience now incorporates a younger, more Internet-savvy reader. At the same time the site has encouraged our mature audience to interact with the news.”

All registered users can comment on and rate stories on the news site. This has created more interactivity on the site and the ratings draw readers to stories that are recommended by fellow readers.

Three new portals

There are three new portals that have also gone live since the launch of the newspaper, namely http://multimedia.thetimes.co.za, http://podcasts.thetimes.co.za and http://blogs.thetimes.co.za. Traffic to multimedia, blogs and podcasts is alleged to be in excess of 20 000 unique visitors in the last month.

“The recently-launched multimedia portal is at the heart of The Times online strategy of interactivity and convergence. The quality of our multimedia is only matched by international newspapers such as the New York Times and Washington Post,” claims Daniels.

“Our multimedia website is very professionally packaged and is populated by nine multimedia journalists, who all cover different beats and record video footage to load onto the site. This new breed of journalist is essentially a video producer specialising in web production.”

The Times flagship multimedia portal, which has a YouTube look and feel, allows readers to go online to watch standalone video footage as well as multimedia that correspond to stories that have appeared in the newspaper.

According to Daniels, there is never any repetition on the site and the packages often give deeper context and meaning to the story. The site is constantly updated and covers a broad spectrum of content from entertainment to hard news. The Times has an exclusive agreement with New York Times Syndication to use its video footage, making The Times the only online destination in Africa where this footage can be viewed. In just over a month there have been over 200 videos loaded onto the multimedia portal.

Readers are able to rate videos as well as use videos from The Times to display on their own web site or blog. The Times is one of the first newspapers in the world to implement this.

Individuals can also interact with The Times and share its news with friends and family through joining its Facebook group, http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2393022979, which already has almost 500 members.

Ongoing debate

However, Anton Harber, Caxton professor of journalism and media studies at Wits University, and The Times editor Ray Hartley have been having an ongoing blog debate over the quality of its multimedia:

• Harber: Signs of The Times
  
• Hartley: The Times – a critic's view
  
• Harber: A conversation with Hartley
  
• Hartley: Curious thing, blogging.