Reuters working on 'sweeping web re-launch'

Known in-house as Reuters Next, the new site will be a state of the art offering with a redesigned front-end and a proprietary content management system (CMS) built from scratch, website Capital New York reported.

Sources described the site as being remodelled into “editor-curated, stream-based channels such as world news, politics, business and tech”.

“I don’t think we’re trying to reinvent the face of technology” an insider said. “I think we need a competent CMS with great editorial curation and judgment that finally provides a good platform to display all the fine journalism Reuters has been doing.”

Capital New York said Thomson Reuters’ investment in Reuters Next shows the company moving away from a long-held ambivalence towards its consumer web strategy.

Most of the talent working on Reuters Next, including alumni of The Huffington Post, Abrams Media and The New York Observer, has already been hired, it said.

An unnamed person who knows the back-end of reuters.com told Capital New York: “The current site was built on a legacy system conceived in the wire-agency age.”

Reuters’ current website was launched in July 2011. The previous re-launch was in December 2009.

PHOTO: reuters.com: how it looks now. ■