The Times goes Google
The Times – a daily newspaper from Sunday Times publisher Avusa Media – has recently extended their distribution network from a subscriber-only model to sales at traffic intersections in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
The Times is positioning itself as South Africa’s first ‘interactive newspaper’, and its online presence at http://www.thetimes.co.za has grown significantly over the last few months.
According to the latest statistics The Times notched up just over 400 000 Unique Visitors during February – up 63% from 246 301 six months ago.
This significant growth can be partly attributed to the blend of the newspaper’s print and online presence.
“News is told visually with originality and backed up with a rich and interactive multimedia offering that can be followed online,” The Times said.
“The Times readers use the online site as a place to comment on, vote on and even criticise the news — or to simply read more or view photo galleries, video clips, podcasts and blogsites. Traffic to the Sunday Times website has increased by 75% since it relaunched as The Times.”
The new online presence of both The Times and The Sunday Times has evolved under the watchful eye of Colin Daniels, the publisher of Times Online.
One of the recent changes made was to replace competitor Media 24’s search functionality on the Times Online in preference of Google.
“We successfully implemented a customised installation of Google Search on the site which replaced the Search 24 engine that had powered it since launch last year, making us the first major media company to partner with Google on site search in South Africa,” said Daniels in his blog.
“This was one of the things that was high up on my agenda since becoming online publisher and although we encountered a few problems along the way, the technical support and expertise that we received from the local and international Google office was incredible.”
According to Daniels he has already received positive feedback from colleagues and readers who are ‘ecstatic about the switch and many of them highlight the fact that they just have a better search experience with Google’.
Daniels said that he anticipates that the other Avusa Media titles will follow in the footsteps of The Times shortly.
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