New site design Launches

The new design features a social “start page,” which organizes content based on social activity. As new content trends higher, it moves to the “What’s Hot” column. Because images are shared eight times more than links, image, video and text elements are individually shareable. Articles now have higher-quality images, curated and selected by a new full-time image editor.

CASHMORE: We will always look for ways to influence sharing versus cramming stories with keywords.

To address mobile users, which account for 30 % of readers on 2,800 unique devices, Cashmore says:

CASHMORE: What we’re doing is if people are consuming on the mobile web we need to make our mobile site amazing and if they’re coming from Twitter and Facebook, we need to make that experience a good one too. If your website isn’t as fun on these devices, [readers] might go elsewhere, which is why packaging is going to be big in 2013.

Advertising will now be primarily “native,” or custom ads, rather than display.