Honey’s Sweet New Redesign

February 3, 2009

Nokware talked last month about Honey Magazine’s latest incarnation as a web-only publication with a substantial $10 million investment behind it. The site recently went live and is currently in beta.

The new Honey Magazine site design shuns the familiar brown and orange of previous site designs and went for an edgier, darker look with various shades of magenta and selected grunge elements used throughout. Honey’s affiliated social networking components are more prominent on this new site, with login information prominently displayed and integrated in a few places. Commenting on any of the articles or blog entries requires you to register for “The Hive”, the new name of the HiveSpot.com integration. There is the ability to “share” articles, create user profiles, and join different content groups as well.

One major oversight I caught while navigating through the site is that none of it can be syndicated. For blogs particularly, I looked for an RSS feed, but none were available. I also couldn’t discern the benefit of “sharing” the content since a) you had to be a registered member of the site, and b) the articles aren’t set up to link to other social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Delicious, etc.). The footer links were all broken when I visited the site, and the right sidebar modules don’t offer a clear demarcation between categories upon first glance (the latest activity module, for example, lets you toggle between groups and blogs, but it’s hard to tell which is the active content tab). Even the link to give feedback, which is only on one page of the site), doesn’t jump out at you immediately, which could confuse users. The front page also mixes plain text with graphical text which makes the site less dynamic and accessible. There’s also no mobile version like I know in the last Honey Magazine post suggested they should have.

Overall the site is a definite visual departure from the tried and true Honey Magazine style. What do you think?

Category: Content, Digital Media, Redesigns, Social Networking, web 2.0 | Tags: honey magazine, redesign, sahara media

Lynne d Johnson

I'm rooting for them too. Always have. And the new EIC is one of my mentees so I'm definitely watching this one. But I notice a few technical challenges ahead besides the lack of syndication. URL structure for one -- having cleaner, shorter, title-based URLs that also work good for SEO. Any SEO in particular would help as well. For instance, some of the titles look like their actually images and not in H1 or H2 tags.

Other key things if you just look at the source code could present real real challenges ahead. But I won't go on, cuz I'm not bashing. I really want to celebrate this beta, and besides, I'd rather get paid for my advice.

Angela Benton

You beat me to the punch, lol!!! I have a major issue w/ some of the content being in images even though they are in beta. In general I think the site is pretty however w/o it being syndicated or blocking content in order to get people to register (I totally understand the thought process behind this)...just don't know if that will work well, I guess we'll all see especially as new (and old) business models start to emerge during this recession. There were some interesting reads on there, I checked out a few that were open but I am not sure I'd register just to read it when I can get similar (though not exact) content from a wide range of sites, better yet I can read them in my feed reader. I know I am probably in the minority though of their audience though. This will be interesting to follow!

Dede @ Clutch

For what I know the site is not officially launched yet, so I think that is the reasoning for broken links and lack of content. It's a very cute site and eye catching - and I am excited they are back online. I think they are launching fashion week this month. I am sure it will have more content then.

Jennifer J

The design is nice, but right now the content is lacking. There are too many broken links and they definitely need a syndication strategy. Plus too many "coming soon"messages.

Liz

I agree with Nokware, it probably was a deliberate decision to not have any feeds, however, it's a very misinformed strategy. It's clear Honey mag is on the hunt to get registered users ASAP. Forcing people to log in to do any activity on the site is a sign of that. Hopefully they will go hard on whatever launch plan they have because that's going to be their biggest push for users if they plan to keep their content locked up on their domain as it is right now. Otherwise they better hope people stumble across their site, and feel highly compelled to register. A slow slippery slope that is.

Visually the site is very pretty, though flash heavy with lotsa extra white space.

Nokware Knight

Honey's lack of syndication tools may not be an oversight at all. If they limited syndication and put walls around where shared content can go on purpose, that may actually be a very smart move. Fans who want to view the content are more likely to visit honeymag.com to do so. It ensures that the community is initially built around the website content originated from.

tiffany

I need more structure. Visually, it's like a magazine layout. Doesn't work so well on screen. The content looks VERY promising, but it's lagging a little with the tech. Incomplete footer links? That's something that could have been removed if the content wasn't there. And I saw some comments that were black on black.

I'll be watching this one though. I loved the *ORIGINAL* Honey in print, and it seems like some of that voice is back in the online version.