Women’s lifestyle site iVillage is making its tenth anniversary with the launch of a redesigned site, featuring enhanced user profiles, a new celebrity blogger line up, and premium video on demand content through a deal signed with Web TV.
The redesign has introduced a range of enhancements to its community message boards, users profiles and its advertising solutions.
A raft of celebrity bloggers have also joined the site including former X Factor winners, Alexandra Burke and Shayne Ward.
iVillage.co.uk has signed an exclusive deal with Web TV Enterprise to stream its premium video on-demand content on the re-launched site.
The video section will feature daily updates from E! News, food recipes, gardening advice, health and beauty tips and daily horoscopes across its content channels.
The video content has been selected to complement iVillage.co.uk’s editorial offering.
Web TV Enterprise will work alongside iVillage.co.uk’s sales team to deliver innovative advertising solutions for brands wanting to reach women online.
Meanwhile, the community message boards have been refreshed with the introduction of new features including a new design, expanded board settings, faster posting features, improved search and better navigation.
Profile pages have been upgraded with new personalisation options so for the first time users can add photos including profile photos, customise their profiles pages by selecting colour schemes, manage privacy settings and save their favourite iVillage articles.
Branded message boards have also been enhanced to incorporate new creative advertising solutions.
Additionally, for the first time users are now able to post comments over mobile devices.
Thousands of conversations take place every week over the message boards on everything from relationships, pregnancy and parenting, to health and entertainment.
iVillage.co.uk welcomes celebrity bloggers Alexandra Burke who will blog on beauty whilst Shayne Ward is to pen a weekly ‘agony uncle’ blog.
Former Blue Peter presenter, Katy Hill will comment on family and parenting issues and former What Not to Wear and Britain’s Next Top Model presenter, Lisa Butler joins to blog on fashion.
They join existing resident celebrity bloggers that include former Changing Rooms presenter Linda Barker on interior design.
The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry who provides financial advice along with Dr. Pam Spurr, iVillage.co.uk’s sex and relationship advisor.
Based on open source technology, the new site enables content to be produced more quickly.
The same technology means that the latest, innovative advertising units pioneered in the United States can now be quickly deployed across the UK site. The ‘pushdown’, an auto-expandable ad developed by the US-based Online Publishers Association and currently used by iVillage.com is the first to be introduced.
The ad appears on screen as a narrow strip but once clicked, the user can experience rich interaction and play. Controls allow consumers to open and close the unit. Additionally, the new flexible website structure means future changes can be easily brought in. Significantly, the new website design will act as a cost effective template for future international launches.
“The redesign of iVillage in the UK follows its successful re-launch in the States which began last autumn and completed this September and resulted in impressive growth in users and advertisers. The aim of the redesign is to enhance the user experience, with community at the heart, to make it easier to interact with like-minded others and to find what you want to look at quickly,” said Mike Skagerlind, SVP and GM of iVillage.
“The addition of new celebrity bloggers will further enhance the site’s wealth of content. From an advertiser perspective, the new technology behind the site means the very latest ad products from the US can be brought to market that offer the most creative and engaging advertising solutions.
The redesign brings together engineering, design and editorial to create a new website ready for the next decade ahead. Crucially we’ll be able to adapt even more quickly in future, whether to the changing expectations of our users or to new technology as it emerges.”
The iVillage.co.uk redesign comes on the back of its foray into web TV earlier in the year with Trinny and Susannah ‘What they did next’, which was subsequently broadcast by Channel 4, and Strictly Money, a weekly consumer finance edition of the CNBC programme. Further web TV series deals are planned for 2011.
www.iVillage.co.uk