Espresso news on timesofmalta.com

Coffee and the newspaper are part of the morning ritual for many of us. But technology has caught up with this tradition and timesofmalta.com is now offering its digital version, with its content cleanly presented on one single page, ready to go in one sip just like with espresso.

"The idea came from attending sales meetings with so many managing directors and top level decision makers who all said the same thing. The problem they have is that their jobs are so intense sometimes, that they literally have no time to stay in touch with what is going on in the rest of the country," Phelim Cavlan, business development manager at Allied Newspapers Ltd told i-Tech.

"It was at this point that we realised that we needed to develop a service that catered for readers who needed to get the latest news fast. The analogy with coffee came about just by drawing the comparisons in speed and concentration."

Reader feedback was great in that a number of suggestions came for improvements. One particular reader made four key suggestions for improvements which included providing more links within the page and enriching the links to other parts of the site. These suggestions were considered so worthwhile that the technical team implemented them within three hours of receiving them. In many cases readers have rediscovered some areas of content like the letters section or the opinion pieces.

This innovation also addresses the needs of readers who access the website from work and are therefore hard-pressed for time, giving them quick and easy access to the most recent headlines and top sections.

"The design of the page was important. Starting out, the brief was to try to eliminate unnecessary actions on the part of the reader. We decided to design a page that didn't require scrolling on the page and avoided using too many images on the screen. The inclusion of a key for different kinds of stories allows readers to determine whether the story comes from the newspapers or was published directly onto timesofmalta.com. It also allows readers to identify whether a particular story has other media such as videos or photographs associated with it."

However Mr Cavlan insists it would be wrong to characterise the Espresso news service as a sign of how people's lives are going at a faster pace.

"We have to cater for a wide range of interests and needs," he said while referring to an e-mail received from a reader in San Jose, California, in the last few days thanking timesofmalta.com for providing the webcam pointing at the Grand Harbour. The webcam reinforces the feelings for the island and the beauty it holds, especially with the views at sunrise and sunset, the reader said.

"It reminds me as an already avid consumer of the Espresso news that we should also make time to appreciate what we have around us," concluded the business development manager at Allied Newspapers Ltd.

www.timesofmalta.com/espresso