Irish Times site redesign hints at social future

The Irish Times has completed a small but significant redesign of its site with the addition of social networking and sharing features as well as updates to its revenue generating services.

The changes add a navigation bar above the page title that encourage the user to subscribe to the paper’s RSS feeds and also highlights other Irish Times’ site content. However, more significantly, the changes also place a strong emphasis on the Times’ Twitter profile.

This is the strongest use the paper has placed on its Twitter account (@the_irish_times) since the breakthrough of the microblogging site in late 2008.

And in a sign of the times this update also sees the paper fronting its iPhone Apps and mobile website (m.irishtimes.com) as well as its news text alert systems.

In other changes to the site, a larger emphasis has been placed on the paper’s online commercial activities such as its car ad sales and dating services. These have now been placed to the top of the site in line with the main navigation.

The changes are yet to be implemented across the entire Irish Times site with the Family Notices and Dating sub-sites yet to change.

Let us know what you think of The Times redesign, is it a step in the right direction?