The Wall Street Journal has gone and redesigned again, in what they are claiming to be WSJ 3.0, and are offering free access to their entire site today.
The new WSJ is a little less bloggy in design but not at its core. With new blogs, podcasts and search technology the site is quicker and lends to ease in navigation.
At first glance however, I’m noticing a critical lack in social media optimization of the Journal’s internal stories. Sure, they do a good job with the Technorati powered BlogWatch and Blogosphere Search, but where are the Digg, del.icio.us and NewsVine social news sharing icons?
Sure, the bulk of the WSJ coverage is subscriber only, but wouldn’t subscribers also benefit by seeing links and coverage of WSJ articles within the social news-osphere?
Greg Jarboe at Search Engine Watch reminds us all to take a good look at WashingtonPost.com for a well SMO’d national news site.
Sure, since WashingtonPost.com is open to the public and monetized via advertising, proactive use of bookmarking and social news sharing ‘call to action’ buttons make much more sense than WSJ using them. Guess we’ll have to join Mr. Jarboe and play the waiting game to see which model prevails, the paid walled garden with an occasional loose brick for peeping in, or the open and well sponsored playing field.
