It seems that Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s largest newspaper published in Hebrew, has finally decided to take on an English-speaking world audience. A beta version of its first English-language website is now publishing, serving as a sister site to the Yedioth Group’s Ynet news site, which serves Hebrew-speaking people around the world.
The site has some interesting features, such as an original comic strip, “The Golem: Adventures of an Israeli Super Hero.” All articles include a “Talkback” feature for user comments (nothing every blog in the world doesn’t have, but still not universal on websites of big newspapers).
The homepage design is unusual, with navigation on the right side of the page; the left column, the location of navigation for most news sites, is devoted to modest-size advertising banners. If you remember my comments on Poynter’s Eyetrack III study, you’ll know that placing navigation on the right side isn’t a bad idea; that eyetracking testing found that people do easily find right-side navigation. And because people’s eyes tend to hover initially on the upper and left portions of a homepage, having ads on the left makes sense.
Israel’s Biggest Paper Does the Web in English
