Communications of the ACM
Communications Web Site Wins Best New Site Award
Credit: cacm.acm.org
ACM's Web platform for its flagship publication Communications of the ACM (http://cacm.acm.org) garnered the top award for best new Web site by Media Business magazine. The magazine, published by Crain Communications Inc., announced the awards in a September 14 special report "Ten Great Media Web Sites." The Communications site, formally launched May 1, 2009, features a clean, fresh look, powerful search and browse functionality, user content generation capabilities, easily shareable content with third party Web sites, and deep integration with ACM's sizable archive of computing literature. This site serves as the voice for the high end IT community, delivering late-breaking news, opinion, and research.
"The Communications Web site has triggered dynamic dialogues within the computing community as a trusted resource for computing professionals worldwide that goes beyond the print edition," says ACM Media Group Publisher Scott Delman. "This platform enables us to provide in depth technology content from some of the leading practitioners in computing, and it generates a lot of traffic to both the Communications Web site and to acmqueue [http://queue.acm.org/], our online, Web-enabled resource aimed at computer practitioners."
In its first 60 days, the Communications site achieved a global reach that touched some 186 countries on six continents. Traffic has more than doubled since the launch, climbing to 1,400 visits per day on average, with nearly 98,000 unique visitors who collectively speak 113 different languages, and recording more than 215,000 page views. Some 72 percent of visitors arrive from over 1,700 social media and other sites. ACM partnered with Digital Pulp, a New York-based company, on the design and development of the Communications Web site.
"The Communications Web site offers trusted insights for computing's leading professionals," says Moshe Vardi, Communications Editor-in-Chief. "Our goal is to ensure that the content enables readers and browsers alike to gain essential insights into industry information that are invaluable for their professional advancement." Vardi is Professor in Computational Engineering and Director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology at Rice University.
Delman notes that traffic to the site is community-driven, in keeping with today's Web 2.0 culture. "We created a group experts blog, named the BLOG@CACM, as well as a carefully curated Blogroll of commentators in the computing field. This combination creates multiple opportunities for users to form discussion threads."
According to Media Business, each Web site submitted for judging went through an initial screening to evaluate a variety of criteria including: appearance, organization and navigation; search functionality; video and other multimedia content; and community/social media (Web 2.0) features. The magazine said that the litmus test for Web 2.0 elements was recent and regular participation by users. Nominations were solicited for ten categories: IT, trade (non-IT), general business, launch, relaunch, paid subscription, portal, video/multimedia and Web 2.0, which was divided into IT and non-IT categories.
The Communications Web site features extensive content from the current issue as well as the complete archived issues of Communications that span more than 50 years of in-depth coverage of the computing profession. The site also offers access to searchable content from the ACM Digital Library and from other sources around the Web. The robust blog section (http://cacm.acm.org/blogs) is updated daily. Contributions from a continually growing community of bloggers representing leading industry experts are accessible by both subscribers and the general public.
Other features include a Careers section (http://cacm.acm.org/careers) for job seekers and employers with job search capabilities and opportunities for posting and viewing resumes as well as career-related news and highlights. The site also makes it easy for users to access content directly from the site or via RSS feeds and email alerts.
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