BY NASTYA FORINA
August 1st was a big day for the Chicago Tribune. The newspaper launched its new website.
With the change, the Tribune hopes to increase online readership and advertising.
The Tribune’s team of news-application developers have been creating a lot of online projects and tools to highlight important content. Now, with the new website, it’s all nicely featured under the name “maps and apps” in the watchdog section.
Part of the Tribune’s archive can be found there – with scanned copies of newspaper issues dating back to 1847, up to 1991. A search option is available, making it easy to find information.
The news apps team has developed an app to follow the newspaper’s investigation that revealed suspicious increases in Chicago red light camera tickets. Any driver can check it by entering a license plate number and intersection.
There are also several projects on crime in Chicago, showing areas where people were shot, with information about the victims, their families and friends. Some of those are very poignant.
There is also a separate web page dedicated to the 100th year anniversary of Chicago’s well-known baseball field – Wrigley Field. It’s a collection of photos, videos and short stories featuring each year of stadium’s history.
All of the news apps attract good traffic, according to the tech developers.
Half of Americans are getting news digitally versus 29 percent who get the news from print, according to a Pew Research Center biennial study released in 2012.
At a time when the number of people reading the news online is big and growing, creating a variety of online projects to add to the main website presents a great pattern to follow.
