Responsive Redesign at The Boston Globe

Kat Stoeffel — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 06:30:17 -0400

The Boston Globe launched a paid subscription website today, BostonGlobe.com. The site has been spun off from the general news and information site Boston.com, where the Globe previously occupied a vertical.

“The Boston Globe has never had a front door on the internet,” said editor in chief Martin Baron. The Globe is owned by The New York Times Company.

Home delivery subscribers can access the site for free and a digital-only subscription will cost $3.99 a week, beginning October 1. Coldwell Banker is sponsoring a free trial through September 30. Unlike the New York Times pay wall, BostonGlobe.com will not be metered, though it will support one click when accessed through search and social media.

The spare Globe website has a responsive design that adapts to different window sizes, browsers and devices, and it has a built-in Instapaper-type feature that saves articles for reading off various devices on the subway. The overhaul has incorporated the talents of Boston design firms Filament Group, and Upstatement, as well as a large internal team, and pre-empts the need to build separate apps for each device.

“It’s designed to be read,” publisher Christopher Mayer told The Observer.

At least for a certain kind of reader. In erecting the paywall, Mr. Mayer has divided his readers into two fundamentally different camps. The Boston Globe readers who read the paper deeply each day and value journalism enough to pay for it are rewarded with a streamlined design, and the free Boston.com will continue to serve more casual news readers, as well as catch SEO traffic, on a noisier site with more display advertising and shorter articles.

The two newsrooms are integrated, and some Boston Globe content will still be published for free on Boston.com, in particular breaking news, sports, photo features, and community blogs. Boston.com editors will pick five Boston Globe stories to run at full-text each day.

As for Boston.com's makeover, it'll get underway in 2012.

Thursday: Zillow II and Other Trackers

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:02:06 -0400

Almost 300 years of history gets eaten up by eminent domain for the Fulton Street Transit Center project, Lisa Chamberlain of Polis reports. (The New York Times)

What if information could be physical? What if the memories you associate with that drunken night in the Lower East Side and the office hours of your dentist could be mapped? Now, think on a grander scale. (Searchscapes)

Geoscientists can look at a photo and name the location from minor details, which is helpful when tracking down terrorists. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists via Archinect)

The winner of an international condo design competition is from Beijing. The building, however, is planned for ... Mississauga, Ontario! And the building has been nicknamed the Marilyn Monroe. Curves in all the right places.(Toronto Star)

An architect helps Bostonian achieve his dream: to build a house from garbage. (Boston.com)

Writers are known for their eccentricities, like raising their children in a slum because it provides "an interesting childhood." (The New York Times)

Real Estate ABC is the new Zillow. It has adjustable property values. Zillow is probably better. (Curbed)

Bleecker Street as Saville Row. (New York Post)The Chocolate Secret Suite is a secret hotel room somewhere in Manhattan where you can do something that no one else will ever know about. (UrbanDaddy via Hotel Chatter)

We seem to have this take-away from at least one story a day: This city doesn't really like poor people. "Since 1990, the city has lost close to 30,000 apartments, a quarter of the apartments created by the largest subsidy programs for families of low and moderate income. And thousands more units are in the process of being de-subsidized right now." (Gotham Gazette)

Monuments are political. The image they create and the party they seek to remember tell a history of power and money. (Metropolis)

- Riva Froymovich

Observer » Boston.com

Responsive Redesign at The Boston Globe

Thursday: Zillow II and Other Trackers