New CNN.com Launches Monday

CNN Press Release - The new CNN.com, launching Monday, Oct. 26, harnesses the full power of CNN and delivers it directly to web users in a stunning, visually charged online experience, it was announced today by KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com.

(Click on the photo to view a full-sized preview.)

The new CNN.com, launching Monday, Oct. 26, harnesses the full power of CNN and delivers it directly to web users in a stunning, visually charged online experience, it was announced today by KC Estenson, senior vice president and general manager of CNN.com.

Through a full-scale, breakthrough design, the new CNN.com is uncluttered, visually bold and dramatically improves the consumer experience. In addition to showcasing CNN’s in-depth reporting, the site includes the launch of new features that make the site easier to browse and navigate, as well as a new opinion section, more integrated video and stunning photography. Adding new voices and a range of perspectives to CNN.com, the site will also feature deep content partnerships with Oprah.com, TED, People and EW magazines.

“This is a total reimagining of CNN.com, and we are extremely excited about unveiling it to the world,” said Estenson. “CNN.com has always been a destination for breaking news but the breadth and depth of the new site will give users a fresh new way to experience CNN’s content.”

Visually Driven Design and Personalization:
The new CNN.com showcases CNN Worldwide’s extensive video capabilities by featuring video and photography as the centerpiece of the homepage. The new visually captivating homepage offers all of the best stories, video, interactive features above the fold – complemented by the ability for users to customize their news settings. CNN.com’s new personalization functionality enables users to customize their personal CNN.com homepage with weather and local headlines, stock quote lookup and sports scores.

The site’s search ability was rebuilt, allowing users to more quickly and easily find articles and videos across the vast CNN.com network. The new site also introduces a beta product called NewsPulse – a new way of laying out all the news CNN.com has to offer. The intuitive filtering tool enables users to see the most popular articles and videos at a glance, search for any topic or keyword, and sort by popularity, number of comments, or by time published. Once users find a story of interest, they can read, watch or share without leaving the NewsPulse experience.


Sections and Voices:
CNN Entertainment: Applying the same philosophy to entertainment news as CNN has employed in covering politics and business news, CNN.com is now aligning all of its entertainment resources – a reporting unit, journalists in the field, CNN’s Los Angeles and New York bureaus and CNN.com’s entertainment reporting team – to make it the premiere entertainment news destination online. CNN.com is partnering with People and EW magazines to provide more of their sweeping coverage of entertainment news right within CNN.com.

CNN Opinion: CNN.com is launching CNN Opinion, a new opinion section featuring text as well as video commentaries from numerous guest contributors as well as individuals within CNN. New regular contributors to this section include:

- Pete Cashmore: CEO and founder of Mashable, one of the world's top ten blogs according to the blog ranking service Technorati, which focuses on up-to-the-minute news on social networks and new websites

- David Frum: a Canadian-born conservative journalist fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, he is also the editor of NewMajority.com, a site dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement

- John Leguizamo: an Alma- and Emmy Award-winning Latino comedian, actor, voice actor and producer

Other current contributors include: Gloria Borger, Joy Behar, Bob Greene, Roland Martin, and Ruben Navarrette among others.

Content Collaborations:
TED Talk Tuesdays: Moving beyond the standard commentary, CNN.com is launching a new video commentary feature through a partnership with TED. TED is a small nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. Two annual TED Conferences invite the world's leading thinkers and doers to give the talk of their lives 18 minutes. Talks from TED and partners are made available, free, to the world on TED.com, and now, on CNN.com. Past TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Al Gore, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Nandan Nilekani, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. CNN.com will bring these inspirational conversations to our mainstream audience through TED Talk Tuesdays, where CNN.com will feature a talk on the home page each week. The site also will produce additional editorial content, including follow-up interviews with TED speakers, commentaries or original reporting around the Talk’s subject to provide users with a wide range of points of view.

Oprah.com: CNN.com’s partnership with Oprah becomes more robust, leveraging their content and contributors more across the Health, Living, and Entertainment sections of the site. Additionally, CNN.com is joining forces with Oprah.com and Facebook to present a live Oprah's Book Club interactive web event on Monday, November 9, 2009 at 9:00 p.m. (ET). The webcast will be a 90-minute worldwide event, during which readers can submit their questions for the author and potentially be featured during the live discussion. The special online event will be streamed live simultaneously from CNN.com’s video player on CNN.com and Oprah.com and will utilize Facebook Connect, enabling users to comment and pose questions through their Facebook profiles without ever leaving the
live webcast.

Oprah's Book Club’s sixty-third selection is "Say You're One of Them," the fiction book by Uwem Akpan. The book covers the plight of children in Africa through five short stories that are each told from a child's perspective.

“Americans in Afghanistan” and “The Handsome Furs Tour Asia”:
Building on the success of CNN.com’s Freshman Year series in which two Freshman Congressman document their experiences on the Hill with Flip cameras, CNN.com is launching two new first-person mini-documentaries exclusive to the web.

“Americans in Afghanistan” goes behind the headlines into a side of Afghanistan rarely seen. Two Americans living in Afghanistan and working with non-profit organizations share their lives through a series of firsthand video reports, revealing the struggles big and small and the moments of success that make their work worth it.

CNN.com will also feature a series, “The Handsome Furs Tour Asia.” Armed with two Flip cams, this indie rock duo husband and wife team of Dan Boeckner and Alexei Cox Perry documented their Asian tour first hand as they visited China, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Thailand. The Asian tour featured in the series is in support of their second record, Face Control, which got an 8 out of 10 from indie tastemakers, Pitchfork.com and other critical acclaim. These self-described travel nerds share the fun, excitement and drama of visiting new places, meeting new people and testing new foods. Boeckner is also a member of indie rock break out band Wolf Parade.

CNN iReport:
Since CNN launched iReport three years ago, the iReport community has grown into an integral part of newsgathering and storytelling at CNN. To reflect the growth and maturity of the community, as well as CNN’s commitment to collaborating with its audience to deliver the richest, most complete global news coverage available, iReport is being fully integrated into the new CNN.com.

The CNN iReport section of the new CNN.com will share the site’s breakthrough design, folding the social media features of iReport.com into CNN to create a seamless user experience across CNN’s online news and user-generated platforms. CNN iReport will feature a curated section front, programmed by CNN producers to ensure that the best, most interesting iReport content is easy to find and share. Additionally the CNN iReport section front features direct quotes from iReporters who are in the middle of unfolding stories across the world.

iReport submissions will be clearly labeled when vetted and cleared for reporting on CNN. Vetted iReports now feature comments from CNN producers, who add CNN context to the iReporter’s first-person view. Unverified submissions will be designated as such to provide the most complete context for users.

CNN Challenge:
CNN.com debuts the CNN Challenge, an online news trivia game guided by CNN anchors. Larry King, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Robin Meade and others guide users through the quiz about top stories of the week.

CNN.com is the No. 1 destination for online and wireless news according to Nielsen, garnering the greatest audience share in total minutes and page views and the most mobile usage among current events and global news sites. Launched in 1995, CNN.com draws from the resources of CNN Worldwide and its many partners to provide consumers with the most enriching, immediate interaction with news anywhere, seamlessly combining articles, videos, images, interactive features and user-generated content. CNN.com’s news video offering – both live and on-demand – is unparalleled on the Web. CNN.com’s recent awards include a Peabody Award, two EPpy awards, four CableFAX Best of the Web awards, a National Headliner award, and the 2009 Edward R. Murrow award for best website.