LiveMint.com was designed and developed not with the idea of being the online version of India’s newest financial daily, Mint, but with the mission to serve as its own medium for delivering insightful and resourceful business information to the growing base of readers who get their news online.
In a week that saw the Los Angeles Times announce a shift in resources and energy to the web where ad revenues are growing as well as new opportunities exist, LiveMint.com was clearly ahead of this industry trend. The web site was never considered inferior or secondary to the print edition. The forward-thinking leadership at HT Media, LiveMint.com’s parent company, understood that there is a growing base of new media consumers who want what they want, when they want it, how they want it. The directive to launch a rich, engaging print product with a robust, modern web product is one way to satisfy the demands of these new media consumers.
Early on in the planning, we wanted the web site to be easy-to-navigate, but we didn’t want navigation to strictly rely on the categories. Instead, we wanted users to navigate through the site based on the content itself. The homepage, as a result, relies on interesting story packages, informative headlines and engaging images to move readers through the news and information of the day.
The stock index also provides real-time quotes and the ability to search individual companies. The Reader’s Choice poll gives users a voice on relevant topics. Customizable email alerts and RSS feeds let users get the news they want when they want it. The Quick Hits section of the homepage is a complete glance at the top headlines in each section, for those of us scanners who are looking for the news that’s most relevant to us.
Inside, we made a conscious effort to make article pages more than just a story page. The article page was an opportunity to create a “stickiness” to the site, keeping readers here longer, and also creating the opportunity to get more related information. In addition to the tools letting you rate the article, email it to a friend or print it, the article page will also let you read related articles and links (internal or external) as well as set an alert for when there is more news on the same topic or any company or individual mentioned in the article.
The site launched today reflects the innovative thinking and hard work of the staff at LiveMint.com including Rajan Bhalla, Raju Narisetti, Bharath Aiyer and Palak Sikri in particular. Also of great assistance to the project and ensuring the mission and directives were accomplished were the dedicated consultants from Diamond Consulting which included Rajesh Balaraman, Alex So, Gaurav Govil. And finally, from the Garcia Media team, John Miller and Dan Rubin.
LiveMint.com will evolve quickly moving forward as a modern news site should. And while some in the newspaper industry fear that pushing more resources towards the online product will be at the expense of the print paper, Mint and LiveMint.com demonstrate how a two media can work together to satisfy a diverse audience and give them what they want and need.