Awaiting the New Newsweek

We're eager to see the new Newsweek.com, which is debuting tomorrow (Friday).

According to assistant managing editor Kathleen Deveny:

The redesigned home page will be easy to navigate and introduce new features, such as an interactive version of "Conventional Wisdom." We'll be offering a mix of our own content, aggregated content and content generated by our users. If we were to do a magazine piece on nukes in Iran, for example, we would post it along with links to the best stories we can find at other Web sites—including our direct competitors'—while encouraging our readers to ask questions and comment via Twitter.

All that is in anticipation of a major overhaul of the print publication, to be unveiled on Monday:

Nearly everything about the way the magazine looks will change. Our new design is meant to be less daunting, more entertaining and easier to navigate. It will be divided into four clear sections: short newsy items, essays and commentary, longer features and cultural coverage. It will be printed on higher-quality paper, which instantly will make it feel better in your hand.

The print publication will be deliberately going after a smaller and more demographically desirable audience (translation: advertiser-friendly affluent niches), with an eye toward jacking up the subscription price. The Website, on the other hand, will be reaching out to a bigger audience:

The site already has 6.8 million unique monthly visitors, according to Nielsen, which means more people read Newsweek stories online than in print. We'd like to increase that number significantly, while keeping users on the site longer.

Naturally we're especially keen to see how Newsweek plans to bolster its videojournalism, which so far has been sparse and unremarkable (a FOUR-part Bob Saget interview?!?!). ...

In an era when the 24/7 Web news cycle has made the newsweekly concept itself obsolete, it would seem that distinctive hard-hitting video stories -- which a mighty media organization like Newsweek has the resources to deliver -- would be one surefire way for the struggling magazine to pull ahead of the rest of the pack.

Standing by...