Welcome to the new TIME.com.
If you’re a regular, or even occasional, visitor to the site, you’ve probably noticed that something looks different today. In fact, a lot has changed — for the better. The same great award-winning news coverage, commentary, photography and video are all still here, but they’re presented in a fresh, streamlined design, making everything easier to find and enjoy, whether you’re accessing the site from a desktop computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone.
That’s because on Monday, Oct. 22, TIME.com becomes the first global news site to roll out a fully responsive redesign optimized for mobile and tablet browsing. The launch of this new design has many facets. What it means, in the simplest of terms, is that all the pages of the site will now automatically resize to fit all computer and mobile-device screens. And because one unified site will feed all the different platforms, mobile users will for the first time have access to all of the same rich content available on the desktop TIME.com site; most notably, each complete new issue of TIME, as well as the vast magazine archive dating back to 1923, will be available to subscribers browsing with their smart phones or tablets. The responsive redesign does not replace our separate popular smart-phone and tablet apps, which provide a different, distinctive experience for users. Now you have both options.
TIME has already been a leader in the social-media space, with nearly 4 million followers on Twitter and large user bases on Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Foursquare and Instagram. In embracing responsive design, we are responding to the way you want to access and use our content. But as innovative as it is, the TIME.com redesign is about more than just being responsive. Created by TIME.com design director Davina Anthony with input from the magazine’s design staff, the new look showcases the depth and breadth of our content, with over 100 new articles, blog posts and photos produced each day. Its new clean design embodies the award-winning aesthetic of the TIME brand across all platforms. In particular, the new design includes these new features: a fresh new home page, a heightened presentation and promotion of TIME’s industry-leading photography, more emphasis on TIME’s voices and personalities, improved search capabilities and a robust new commenting system, LiveFyre, that pulls relevant conversations from Twitter and Facebook.
A site’s design, of course, can do only so much if the content it presents isn’t equally compelling. So to help usher in the launch of our new responsive redesign, TIME.com is launching a special five-part investigative series on genetic testing. Researched and reported by writer Bonnie Rochman, the project examines the scientific promise and ethical perils of this burgeoning field, and it will be just the first of many in-depth features that will launch on the site in the coming months. Also this week, TIME editor-at-large Harry McCracken presents our always engaging annual list of the best blogs. So come back soon and often as we help make sense of the world for you.
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