Essence.com gets Ning-y with it
Essence.com has finally launched their new design. Aesthetically I absolutely love it. It is bold (in a non-confrontational way) and airy all at once. On the “web 2.0″ side I did expect to see more in this respect. While the site includes a community, a la Ning, what is clearly absent is the ability to subscribe to content categories using RSS. I guess this isn’t a huge surprise since few sites, outside of blogs, who target African-Americans actually utilize RSS at all. On the plus side they do use Add This to allow users to share content in a variety of ways. Another note you can sort content in their Most Popular module that is carried throughout the site by most viewed and most shared which definitely comes in handy when looks for “hot” content. I expected the sites Blogs to be hosted by Essence versus Typepad with this relaunch, not so… at least not yet. The site is still currently in Beta.
Overall beautiful site but nothing there to make me want to go back or consume the content and brand in other ways like from my fave RSS reader, from my iPhone, etc. Also not so sure the social network is compelling enough to make me that involved in it (I did join it though). This is not to say if say they were on Twitter I wouldn’t follow them, I totally would. I guess lately, with all the many social networks there are to join it can get a bit cumbersome and it is simply just easier to engage with great brands like Essence where I already participate. Like Facebook, they have a group there that I just found out about and joined. I am wondering how many Black women are like me though? How many are pressed for time, too much on their plate, but still want content from Essence but just need it in a quicker way that is more convenient than a newsletter? Not sure I have the answer, I would like to think many Black women are like this however not so sure if they would consume the same way I would…from Netvibes, from my iPhone, via RSS email subscription. Perhaps there is a “new type” of Black women that has yet to be catered to on the web, the opportunity is there and wide open for someone to pursue. Until then I and others like me will be waiting.
P.S. Essence, thanks for not defaulting your video, Essence TV, to autoplay 
About the Author Angela Benton is the Founder and Publisher of BlackWeb20.com. Her experience spans a variety of industries including consultative relationships with companies such as UPS, Bizjournals.com, Realestate.com, and Lendingtree.com.
See all posts by Angela.
I am not impressed. I almost thought that it looked like they were using soapblox. I told one of the editors I knew over there to call me if they needed some different perspective. The old site wasn’t Web2.0, but it was astetically pleasing. this new sight does not take advantage of ESSENCE’s ability to crank out some amazin visuals. They didn’t take their strengths and move the over to Web2.0 they are giving their strengths away.
They got hosed. I could have done the site for a fifth of the price and I know nothing about PHP or CSS. this is clearly a template.
Unfortunately, they had some really positive press that I wanted to blog about over at my site, and I guess with the redesign, they have a lot of dead links.
Boo.
htaccess file!?!? database redirects!?!? come on people!
it moved rather slow but i am happy about the ning feature. i’m a fan of the community not just because i have my own organization there (motown writers network) but because they connect all my “friends” throughout my whole community.
so this is a benefit to me.
although i do ask, with all the money warner has you would think they’d invest in doing it on their own.
I was really looking forward to seeing this – and I am disappointed. It’s overwhelming with ads and very busy. It’s in beta – so maybe it will get better. And why oh why would they use Ning – can’t Time Warner spring for a customized platform.
ugh!
I’m still trying to figure out why media sites and alike always fill obligated to display so much content to a visitor. They should instead make an attempt to navigate visitors through new and engaging areas and content within the site. This strategy becomes extremely difficult when visitors are overwhelmed with material. Overall, I give the new design a weak 8 out of 10. I just don’t know where my eyes should go.
Looks really choppy and with a very common magazine template feel to me (reminds me a lot of any professional news template that you see out there) — lots of weird white space at the bottom too shows just how box and template driven things are since its thrown off down there
Any noob can buy a template like this off the shelf — not hating but not impressed either — i dont see anything that anyone with a little bit of cash to get some nice stock photography couldnt do here (in ‘essence’ for lack of a better word…this is all to it for this site — lots of pretty pics of brown/black skin to make you feel all warm and like you’re at home)
Essence like BET are cash cows in that advertisers in many cases will think about them first for many campaigns so theyll make money — I think anyone can pull a site off like this…nothing super special about it