IEEE Spectrum July, 2009 - 4

spectral lines
IEEE Spectrum Online:
Content Is Liberated!

L

ucky you: A quarter
of a billion Web sites
now compete for your
attention. Meanwhile, desk
jockeys are uploading
20 hours of video to
YouTube every minute-
that's 33 minutes of content
a second. Twitter and other
social networks, with their
constant stream of updates,
suck up whatever spare time
you might have left.
It was against this tumult
that we set out, 20 months
ago, to revamp IEEE
Spectrum Online (spectrum.
ieee.org). The motivation
was straightforward:
To thrive, we've got to
make our Web site a part
of your daily media diet.
The new site was
unveiled in early June, with
everything you need to troll
through our vast, nutrientrich information or quickly
zero in on a specific bit
of knowledge. Instead of
updating the site daily, we're
blasting out new stories in
multiple mediums several
times a day, which you can
now follow by using our
RSS feeds. We've liberated
our blog and multimedia
content from the silos where
they've languished far too
long. Every hour, the latest
entries from our blogs-
Automaton, EnergyWise,
Risk Factor, Sandbox, and
Tech Talk-pop up all over
the site, including in our
topical, newly refurbished
channels and subchannels.
In addition to our
stalwarts Semiconductors
10

and Computing, we've
added new channels we
think you'll find compelling:
Aerospace, Green Tech, and
Robotics, as well as the
career-oriented At Work
and the lifestyle-based
Geek Life. These channels
let you drill down into
deep reserves of Spectrum
content, much of which you
may never have seen before.
We've also expanded our
multimedia offerings by
adding audio slide shows,
which showcase our staff's
expertise in gathering
compelling audio-used
in our broadcast-quality
podcasts-along with
stunning photography,
which you can now
enjoy on practically
every page of our site.
And everywhere you
go, starting with our easyto-navigate home page, you
will be guided by the choices
you and your fellow visitors
make via our traveling table
of contents: Most Viewed,
Most E-mailed, and Most
Commented-on boxes appear
everywhere to help guide
you to the hottest content.
Building a community
around our site was so
important to us-and to
you, our loyal visitors-
that we've improved the
ease with which you can
leave comments and join
the conversation around
topics of the day. Even the
sponsors of our webinars
are stoking the community
vibe by offering series
of live events on topics

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * July 2009

like robotics, which are
drawing return visitors
and building connections
among engineers with
similar interests.
A great Web site gives the
illusion that it was effortless
to create. Nothing could be
further from the truth. The
long process of improving
our Web site started with
usability studies of the
existing site. As we watched
through a one-way mirror,
people attempted to perform
tasks like signing up for a
webinar, posting comments
to a blog, or finding an
article. It will come as no
surprise that most Web sites
have major "user experience"
problems. Our site proved
to be no exception.
Sufficiently chastened,
we did some soul searching
and then moved on to
making it better. We had to
rethink the way people find
what they want, talk about
it with each other, and keep
coming back for more. For
us, that meant building the
site so that the content we
produce on the back end
automatically winds up in
the right spots on the front
end, freeing our writers
and editors to do what they

do best-keep you abreast
of the latest technological
innovations and provide
you with a context in
which to understand
their implications.
Which brings us to our
second usability study
takeaway: We need to make
sure Spectrum Online
allows you to explore the
content-rich world of both
Spectrum and IEEE. In doing
so we hope to promote IEEE
to new audiences of potential
members while connecting
the dots for current
members and other users.
We're already automatically
linking to related content
from the IEEE Xplore
digital library on pages
throughout the site. And
we're planning to bring you
related content from IEEE's
societies and conferences
in the very near future.
We'd love to hear what
you think about our latest
effort and your suggestions
for making things better.
And for a list of all the
folks who worked so
hard to make the new site
possible, go to spectrum.
ieee.org/static/thank-you.
-Harry Goldstein
& Joshua J. Romero
www.spectrum.ieee.org
http://www.ieee.org http://www.ieee.org/static/thank-you http://www.spectrum.ieee.org
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum July, 2009
