nzherald flashback: March 3, 2000

In 1999, the Herald "new media" team grew quickly to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding online business.

Our designers were put to work remodelling the company's principal website, nzherald.co.nz.

This saw the introduction of the columnar layout preferred by most newspaper websites and liberal use of the Herald's corporate blue.

Another major change was the site's new name, the New Zealand Herald Online.

The technical team now had the resources to manage the web servers, and these were moved in-house in late 1999.

In early 2000 the Herald appointed an online editor, and the number of stories reproduced each day from the print edition increased dramatically.

In addition, the online editorial team began providing their own coverage of major news as it happened. One of the first big stories covered in this way was Team New Zealand's successful defence of the America's Cup.



"The new Herald Online was a bit heavy on the graphics, but it was much better than the first attempt. It felt more like a mainline news site."

- Patrick van Rinsvelt, nzherald.co.nz technical manager


Full screen