• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 6, 2007

As with many traditional media outlets, USA Today has opted to embrace the same "new media" forces now threatening its longtime hold on consumers. Targeting today's interaction-hungry readers, the Gannett-owned paper this weekend relaunched its Web site in the guise of a social network laden with video, blogs, dynamic content-sharing and recommendation tools.

As a result, the new USAToday.com--now displayed in widescreen format--includes expanded user-profile and social-network capabilities, and public comment and content contribution tools across the site.

Of utmost importance, the new site was designed to create a community around the news--one that connects readers to reporting and each other, according to Jeff Webber, the site's senior vice president and publisher.

"Our readers are always looking for new ways to engage more directly in discussions," Webber said.

To achieve the site's new look and feel, USA Today enlisted the proprietary social media services of Pluck Corp. Pluck SiteLife, for example, makes possible reader blogs, photo sharing, content ratings, reader comments, and forums, while Pluck BlogBurst is a blog syndication network with some 3,400 blogs serving up content to major news outlets, magazines and broadcast networks worldwide.

"Our relationship with Pluck has enabled us to integrate social media tools throughout the site, creating a powerful combination of content and community to engage and inform our readers," added Webber.

A privately held company based in Austin, Texas, Pluck's other clients include Hearst, Meredith and The Washington Post. With this weekend's relaunch, USA Today joins a stampede of publishing that is racing to compete in an increasingly Web 2.0 world.

The New York Times, for example, has been busy augmenting its Web presence.

In the most recent example, the paper is revising its online political coverage in anticipation of the 2008 presidential election.

Said Times Editor in Chief Bill Keller in a memo sent to staff late last month: "For this Presidential election cycle we are organizing our coverage in a new (for us) way: for the first time, a central political desk will supervise coverage for the newspaper and the web. This new desk will include not only newspaper editors, but also people with experience in web production, database reporting and software development. Newspaper and online journalism will get equal emphasis--we are well past the day when we can think of ourselves as a newspaper with a Web site on the side--for an audience that now expects its political news to arrive in full multimedia, interactive glory."