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BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS
Rachael Ray Gets Perky Online .jpg) interactivity. Digital is different, the site managers will tell you. But when you have an ebullient personality like Rachael Ray and a magazine as starkly visual and colorful as Everyday with Rachael Ray, that dynamic shifts a bit. “This is such a strong brand that wins awards for design and look and feel and the risks they are taking that are paying off,” says Rachel Martens, general manager RachaelRayMag.com. “We look at it as a benefit to marry with the print. They are doing such a good job, and we are trying to reinvent that experience. We want people to feel it is as produced as the magazine.” Live now for a week, the relaunched site from Readers Digest Association tries to embody that signature Rachael Ray color and perkiness with a host of novel interactive elements. One of the first things you notice about the new site are the large images driving almost all of the features. The visuals very much match the magazine’s look and feel. It is clean and airy. Even the food-related videos have been made to match the on-air and in-book look of step-by-step walkthroughs. The big difference online however, is that users are less interested in watching a full recipe made in a video clip and more interested in short how-tos. “The easiest way to cut an onion or mash potatoes or make scrambled eggs are the most searched,” says executive editor Diane Dragan. In fact the new recipe box pulls together on one page a number of different ways a user can get into a recipe. Step-by-step images let readers see the process. All the recipes are associated with cooking tips videos. And the users are invited in to comment and talk about the twists they put on each recipe. Another RDA-owned site, AllRecipes.com learned long ago that users like to see how others in the community tweak a recipe or try them with substitutions. The new site lets users add comments and even filter the comments by others . “We find that 77% of our audience is interested in just getting reviews of people who made it themselves,” says Dragan. One of our favorite innovations at the new site is a new “Cooking View” of a recipe. This mode puts the recipe into a single screen that requires no scrolling. Why? Because the research shows that a third of users bring their laptops into the kitchen now to follow a recipe instead of printing it out. “No more gunk on the keyboard,” says Dragan. In addition to re-thinking the online presentation of recipes, RachaelRayMag.com is hoping to bring a more user-generated approach to travel coverage as well. An online wiki has listings for every U.S. state where users can contribute their experiences, advice and reviews of destinations. “We are looking for a way to reinvent travel from magazines for the Web and make it vibrant and everyday and current,” says Dragan. The leadership team at RachaelRayMag.com are old hands at re-thinking magazine brands online. Martens has been at Time Inc. where she worked on partnership marketing in the Parenting group and then later at Register.com. Dragan was executive editor at Conde Nast’s Concierge.com and was executive editor at Meredith’s Parents.com. RachaelRayMag.com comes into the women’s service content contest with 650,000 unique visitors and a fairly hearty share of visitors who know the magazine well already. About 41% of the monthly print readers also come to the site. If you have breaking news to share please contact Steve Smith at ssmith@accessintel.com COMMENTS
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