Reportr.net

UK website Journalism.co.uk has an interesting article on the plans by technology website ZDnet UK to reinvent itself as a social media site.

According to the article, ZDnet UK wants to put social networking at its core and is creating a new post of community editor to moderate discussions, grow the community and create a dialogue with the readership.

“We will still have our lead stories giving people an overview of what is going on because we have got a dozen people on staff monitoring the industry,” said Matt Loney, ZDNet UK site director.

“But equally a big part of this redesign was to let the reader decide what they want, how they get it and to give them more control over that because if we don’t do that someone else will.

“We have always let people interact with the website to a degree, but now what we are doing is allowing people to log in and collect all the stuff they need together; it’s like a MySpace for geeks.”

At this stage, it is impossible to separate the hype from the reality. But what is clear is that ZDnet has realised that it needs to get closer to its readers, building on the idea of news as a conversation, rather than a one-way monologue.