By: Carl Sullivan The revamped
Denver Post Web site introduced this week has more of a newspaper look and feel, right down to its new name and logo.
Previously known as DPO.com, the new site is
DenverPost.com, which uses the same font as the print newspaper's flag. "The words 'The Denver Post' are the 800-pound gorilla in terms of brand recognition in the whole Rocky Mountain region," said Howard Saltz, associate editor for new media and strategic development.
Saltz said the DPO.com name was adopted several years ago to differentiate the Web site from the print product. "They gave it a different name to distance it from your father's newspaper," he said. "But you can still do cool things on your Web site while keeping the [parent newspaper's] name."
Among the cool things on the new DenverPost.com are -- what else? -- blogs. Six of them, in fact. The site's
"Bloghouse" section features online journals from sportswriters and columnists, including Service Savant, a mystery writer who critiques how local stores treat their customers. Save one, all the blogs were introduced with the redesign.
Beyond choosing the "Denver Post" name, the new site chose a simple design that more closely mimics a print newspaper, Saltz said. "The old site was hard to navigate," he said. "We wanted to keep the [new] site very intuitive."
And focused on breaking news, Saltz added. To do that, the paper created a new position, online news editor, who works throughout the day to keep the site fresh. A print veteran, Mark Harden, was hired for the role. "He's not an outsider and we located him right smack in the middle of the newsroom," said Saltz, who also put a "big gaudy orange" sign on his desk to let the newsroom know that Harden is the "Web guy." The hope is that Harden will be more successful in getting print staffers to contribute to the site.
Breaking news is also provided by local NBC affiliate KUSA TV, which has a news partnership with the
Post. KUSA is owned by Gannett Co. Inc., while the
Post is owned by MediaNews Group Inc. DenverPost.com also helps itself to video footage from KUSA.
"We've had a very successful convergence partnership," Saltz said. TV reporters typically get four bylined stories per week in the print
Post, while newspaper journalists appear on air 10 to 12 times a week. "Some of them are very simple where we just talk back to the anchor, and some are full-fledged news packages," Saltz explained. "[The TV reporters] have better haircuts," he joked.
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