Posted on Mar 9, 2007 | by Staff

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--With a new look and new features, the Southern Baptist Convention's news service, Baptist Press launched its redesigned website, www.BPNews.net, Saturday night, March 10.

Will Hall, executive editor of Baptist Press and vice president for convention news with the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, said, “The look is new, but so are many of the features including the media gallery, which adds the capability to present information in different mediums -- videos, audio clips, slideshows and such -- to enhance the educational and inspirational offerings that complement daily Baptist Press news products.”

A Christian news wire service published at the SBC Executive Committee’s offices in Nashville, Tenn., Baptist Press provides news and feature stories for the 41 state Baptist papers across the country. Through the Internet, BP reaches a worldwide audience of Southern Baptists, like-minded evangelicals and readers seeking content developed from a perspective of faith.

Among other features in the redesign:

-- enhanced navigation, or ease of use, of BP’s daily content and features.

-- new story collection and photo gallery features, making it easier to search BP content from the past decade. All of BP’s weekly “digests,” for example, covering marriage, culture, international and life issues are accessible via the redesigned groupings at BPNews.net.

For churches that host BPNews on their websites, the newsfeed redesign will help the BP headline feature blend more easily on host websites.

BPNews' e-mail service will feature new technology to provide an at-a-glance, fully active homepage e-mail for subscribers to the free service. An easy “Download Today’s Stories” link will provide the full text of the articles each day to print or read all at once.

Hall said the Executive Committee’s information systems and Baptist Press teams “partnered to create an updated, aesthetically pleasing design, framed within a new programming architecture that makes it easier to navigate the website to find content and to search the rich trove of material we have archived. We combined these obvious features with an advanced administrative program that readers will not see, but benefits our readers and media partners because it reduces the workload involved in posting and gives more time and flexibility to customize each edition of Baptist Press.”

Chris Chapman, director of information systems for the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, noted, “The new design and format of BPNews.net enhance the accessibility of the current set of excellent resources and creates new areas of information that will interest all who visit.

Commenting on the months-long intensive creative effort, he added, "We are blessed with gifted and godly web designers who have committed incredible energy and innovation to complete this excellent new design.”
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