Guardian blogs complete move to new technology platform

Guardian.co.uk is in the process of moving the rest of its blogs to its new R2 platform, an update from the title’s own insider blog reports.

From tomorrow the site’s remaining 23 blogs will join the first phase of blogs, which made the switch last month, and will sport a new design and improved tools for commenting.

Titles making the change tomorrow include the technology blog, arts blog and PDA, which says comments will be turned off on the moving blogs between 4pm and 9pm (BST).

The key features of the new blog design are:

  • Keywords linking blog posts to related content across the site
  • The relocation of blogs to their relevant sections – e.g. the politics blog in the politics channel
  • Blogs now share features introduced across the rest of the redesigned site, including the option to share posts by Digg, del.icio.us etc, and a widget showing the most-linked to Guardian content
  • Blog posts are included in the site’s search
  • Commenters can have their own user profiles

As previously reported on this blog, the new features were trialled on the site’s Comment Is Free platform and use social media firm Pluck’s commenting technology.

Analysis of the upgrade is already coming in: Shiny Media co-founder Ashley Norris says the move ‘signals the end of the organisation using a traditional blogging approach’.

The new design, says Norris, gives readers only a brief view of the intro to a blog post on a section homepage.

“To read the story users have to click through to the page. The reason the Guardian has done this is that being less generous means more click throughs, more page views per users and subsequently more ad impressions served,” he points out.

6 thoughts on “Guardian blogs complete move to new technology platform

  1. pm

    I’m sure that’s always been the case?

    Whenever I go to the front page of a blog like OrganGrinder it shows me an extract only.. otherwise it’d be clogged with 3,000-word-long live blog articles about Big Brother…

  2. Jenna

    Um… Ashley Norris is wrong. They’ve always been structured with the first part of the story and then a “read more”, even on Movable Type.

    I’ve grabbed an image and put it here:
    Guardian Blogs

  3. Laura Oliver Post author

    Am I clicking on something different then as I get the posts in full (on the old design)?

    Looking at OrganGrinder and PDA as examples – I’ve clicked on the link to them from the MediaGuardian navigation bar and their links in the blogs section.

  4. Emily Bell

    Hi there – Ashley is wrong – there has always been the ”read more’ approach. And also wrong that it signals an end to a ‘traditional blogging approach’ , whatever that might be. The reason we have migrated our blogs is , as explained, that it makes posts appear in our archive search , on keyword pages, on author pages etc etc.

    We also have the issue with external platforms of adequate scale for their growth in popularity. But all feedback is welcome.

    Emily Bell
    director digital content
    guardian news and media

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