A useful look at how the UK’s Telegraph.co.uk has branched out into several e-commerce areas – notably its Fantasy Football and Fantasy Cricket channels and puzzles.

According to digital editor Ed Roussel, the online fashion shop hasn’t take off as hoped.

“Roussel says developing a system that seamlessly matches product to editorial content is still a challenge, but he envisions a day when the e-commerce gardening application will recognize the rose in an article and serve up offers for that rose or something close to it,” writes Matthew Sollars.

Full article at this link…

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Confirming the Telegraph’s plans to outsource some of its sub-editing operation to Australia in comments on Jeff Jarvis’ blog, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph Media Group, made the following statement:

“Reducing the cost of manufacturing and distribution is an imperative for any newspaper group that is determined to remain profitable, as we are (…) The principle holds true on the digital side. ITN creates our video content, providing quality and value that we would struggle to generate internally; Brightcove handles our video distribution; Google powers our search; Escenic provides our web publishing tool; we use software developers in Bulgaria and India.

“Newspaper-web companies should focus internal resource on what they do best: creating premium editorial content.”

Similar to Jarvis’ own mantra of ‘do what you do best and link to the rest’, Roussel’s ‘outsource the rest’ makes sense in a journalism industry where partnerships and collaboration, especially online, seem to be the way forward.

So, outsourcing – not all bad?

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Journalism.co.uk was given a sneak preview today of Telegraph.co.uk’s redesign plans. It’s a work in progress, but the revamped news, sport, and travel sections, as well as a new homepage, are set for launch in the next week.

Below are some preview images of the new site:

Homepage

Note the new horizontal navigation bar, the addition of a lifestyle tab and the replacement of a Telegraph TV box with embedded video players across the site.

More prominence has been given to comment content. In addition the bottom half and footer of the page will not be used as ‘a dumping ground’, but instead will be a flexible space featuring varied multimedia material. Eventually this space could carry personalised content based on the individual user.

Article page

The design team behind the new site told me they wanted greater consistency between articles and sections to improve navigation across the site.

Individual RSS feeds have also been added for sections and specific topics e.g. at the bottom of this article there’s a feed specifically for Champions League football.

A list of links to articles and other content of relevance has been added on the right hand side of the page – part of a design aimed at seeing every article page as a potential homepage from a user’s point of view, Ed Roussel, digital editor of Telegraph.co.uk, said

First impressions?

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Ed Roussel, the group’s digital director, says video, user-generated content and text are ‘three pillars’ of paper’s editorial strategy.

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