The primary goal of the CNN.com relaunch was to redefine the standard for online news. Extensive research was undertaken to determine what users wanted from CNN.com, and a clear picture emerged that supported CNN’s brand promise: the audience sees the CNN brand as a trusted and authoritative voice on news.

Strategic “cornerstone” concepts drove the site architecture and design. The first concept was “integrated story telling,” integrating all content types, including text, video, photos and interactive maps, into one experience, while enabling editorial staff to lead with the most compelling asset. Another key concept was “story interconnections”: a new classification system and templating approach that allowed topic pages to be produced automatically and gave editorial staff a way to create “hot topic” and in-depth reports quickly for larger news events. The relaunch also engaged the Web as a whole, incorporating blogs, linking easily to local news coverage and engaging the CNN audience in sharing their thoughts on the site’s stories.

CNN.com produces a large amount of video and needed a better way to showcase this competitive advantage. The video strategy included new on-demand and live video experiences. The home page and site section pages were also redesigned to ensure that CNN.com users got a sense of the most important news and features.