Creative Brief CNN.com

Interactive Design 2

Jin Ahn

Creative Brief

What is this project for? CNN: WEB SITE

Cable News Network, commonly referred to by its acronym CNN, is a major cable television network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. The network is now owned by Time Warner, the news network is a division of the Turner Broadcasting System. CNN introduced the idea of 24-hour television news coverage, celebrating its 25th anniversary on June 1, 2005. In terms of cumulative Nielsen ratings or "unique viewers", CNN rates as America's number one cable news source.^[3] While the news network has numerous affiliates, CNN primarily broadcasts from its headquarters at the CNN Center in Atlanta, the Time Warner Center in New York City, and studios in Washington, DC. As of December 2004, the network is available in 88.2 million U.S. households and more than 890,000 American hotel rooms. The U.S version of their broadcast is also shown in Canada. Globally, CNN airs through CNN International and has combined branded networks and services that are available to more than 1.5 billion people in over 212 countries and territories.

CNN debuted its news website CNN.com (then known as as CNN Interactive or CNNi) on August 30, 1995. Initially an experiment, interest in CNN.com grew steadily over its first decade and today CNN.com is now one of the most popular news websites in the world. The wide-spread growth of blogs, social media and user-generated content has had a profound effect on the network, and blogs in particular have focused CNN's previously scattershot online offerings, most noticeably in the development and launch of CNN Pipeline in late 2005. CNN Pipeline was the name of a paid subscription service, its corresponding website, and a content delivery client that provided streams of live video from up to four sources (or "pipes"), on-demand access to CNN stories and reports, and optional pop-up "news alerts" to computer users. The installable client was available to users of PCs running Microsoft Windows. There was also a browser-based "web client" that did not require installation. The service was discontinued in July of 2007 and replaced with a very similar but free web based live video service.^[6]

The now-defunct topical news-program Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics was the first CNN program to feature a round-up of blogs in 2004. Blog coverage was expanded when Inside Politics was folded into the The Situation Room. In 2006, CNN launched CNN Exchange and CNN iReport, initiatives designed to further introduce and centralize the impact of everything from blogging to citizen journalism within the CNN brand. CNN iReport which features user-submitted photos and video, has achieved considerable traction, with increasingly professional-looking reports filed by amateur journalists, many still in high school or college. The iReport gained more prominence when observers of the Virginia Tech Shootings sent-in first hand photos of what was going during the shootings.CNN continues to expand its online platform and now offers several RSS feeds and podcasts.

Who are we talking to?

We are talking to males and female age 30+ middle class.

Where are we now?

CNN.com officially launched new site on Sunday, July 1 of this year. The new CNN.com features a big increase in multimedia, including live video content that was previously only available via the subscription-only CNN Pipeline. It is also now in Flash, rather than Windows Media format. That video content has been integrated into the main site and is available for free. CNN has beefed up its content with that web 2.0 favorite, "user-generated content".

CNN.com currently gets an average of more than 24 million unique users each month. The site was launched in 1995, and this re-design represents a big step forward for the 12-year old site. A CNN representative told us that CNN.com has been completely redeveloped - both graphically and technically. Its goal was to present integrated storytelling, using multimedia (especially video) and the web 2.0 aspects that R/WW readers are familiar with - user generated content, recommendations, related content, blogs, etc.

Where do we want to be?

Personalized CNN News- It is ideal for busy adults (example: busy parents with kids) to check news this way. Just go into My CNN and click and drag the header of news category of your interest (us news, CNN Money, or Entertainment). It simplifies the navigation aspect if one is in a hurry or does not feel like scrolling through pages.

CNN interactive table experience at coffee shops- CNN can join up with Starbucks and have touch screen table displaying CNN.com. I’ve noticed people reading newspaper while they get their cup of coffee and people are always on internet there so maybe this can be possible in the near future.

CNN interface can be similar to cable tv Guide interface- The site will be designed like cable tv interface. You can scroll through topics horizontally and then click on the news of your choice. When the topic gets high lighted it dims the rest of the interface by -50% opacity and on the mouse roll over the paragraph of the header appears with a scroll bar. The user can close the paragraph when they are one reading and then scroll through the next topic. If there is video on the topic it will show on the screen to the top right corner.

CNN interface can be explored by country and it’s region – CNN.com logo will be on the right upper corner and the recommended news header will be placed underneath the logo.

The user can navigate by country and its region of their choice. As you pick your region the screen will zoom in and take the user to the News topic of that region.

CNN interface can be explored by time of the day. – There is new news topic by every hour. There is something going on every minute and second. Important news topic that has happened close to noon today will appear first and then the rest of the days event will follow.