HoneyMag Gets a Clear Focus in it’s Latest Redesign

Just about all the leading websites for African-American women have redesigned lately.  Surely you remember the hoopla that surrounded Essence magazine’s redesign and the layoff of a large portion of their digital staff nearly a week later.  Clutch Magazine also redesigned about a week after Essence improving several content items and adding a new twist to it’s signature clean design direction.  Not to be out done Honey launched this morning with a new look and a much better understanding of not only their audience (sweet spot of multi-cultural 22 year old’s) but also a better understanding of what it takes to be a contender online.

This latest redesign is a MUCH needed improvement from past incarnations.  Though I’m not their target audience visually it is a much better design.  Functionally it is a much better design.  And my briefing of the product disclosed there is a much better strategy as well.  Of all the features launched; HoneyTV, Swarm Blog Network, Live Social Feeds, and the Career Section; the most compelling are HoneyTV and the Live Social Feeds.  The revived magazine’s goal seems not to shun it’s print roots but focuses on moving forward by integrating technology based features into the site and not just focusing on content alone.  Chuck Baker the site’s CTO and GM disclosed they spent months looking at how users interacted with some of the most popular site’s today, one being World Star HipHop.  While at first glance it might seem like a stretch for Honey to look at such a site but the execution of HoneyTV will tell a different story.  HoneyTV is the site’s branded video portal.  While competitors in the space have launched video features on their sites to-date they have all focused on delivering content.  Honey will not only delivers their own exclusive content on HoneyTV they will take a much more legalized cue than WSHH and syndicates content that already exists on the web from 3rd party’s in the portal also allowing for their audience to embed and share from their site.  Impressive considering the functionality is being done with WordPress…a tricked out version of course.

Honey’s Live Social Feeds are interesting.  The pull from all activity related to Honey and has prominent placement on they site’s homepage.  While you can view Honey activity from Twitter and Facebook you can also view HoneyNews and updates from the Swarm Blog Network.  There is also the option to view all.  HoneyNews will essentially take some of the most popular stories on the web form the day written in the Honey voice and offering their take on the topic.  Though the feed is not real-time just yet Baker says they will be including that functionality in another release and may even entertain (depending on the popularity of course) allowing this feature to grow into its own application.

Other interesting things of note include the Swarm Blog Network where the company plans to recruit bloggers not to have their own blogs on HoneyMag but to have their own columns.  It will be interesting to see if this positioning will have an effect on the quality of Bloggers the Network will attract.  Honey has a goal of attracting 1500 writers and blogger for columns on the site.

With so many magazines as of late trying to find the right balance of transition of their brand online; many going out of business completely; Honey not long ago introduced Digital-only covers.  Digital covers in the past design were just nice.  In the new design they sing.  If you are like me and love the experience of magazines, flipping through the pages and such, but also consume most of your content online you’ll be able to respect how features are treated in Honey’s new design.  No I’m not talking about those Flash renditions of magazines where you can page through, I sorely dislike those.  Honey was able to find a good balance between how features are treated in print publications and how articles are consumed online.  Each “cover feature” has the cover included at the article’s onset and then with cleaver layout design strategically places accompanying images and pull quotes while the article flows through out.  The best thing about it is there is no paging, you scroll up and down like you would any other article online yet the feeling (at least for me) is similar to my experience when reading a feature in a print pub.  This works well for Honey given the brands past history as a print pub.

Though traffic growth has been somewhat slow Philmore Anderson, Sahara Media’s (Honey’s parent company) CEO, says their corporate strategy includes acquisitions as well as building other brands in-house.  “We want to touch multi-cultural women at every stage in their life not just the 22-ish year old’s Honey’s demo is.”  He went on to say this strategy will expand into other verticals as well not just multi-cultural women, it will include men as well as many other verticals.  It appears HoneyMag is on the right track after a rocky start.  Their new formula of improved design and user experience, leveraging existing technology creatively for their vertical, and clear corporate strategy is sure to pay off in user acquisition.

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.
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