Premium WordPress Website – Arena Magazine

While we aim to bring you a comprehensive list of premium WordPress themes available to purchase, another feature of Premium WordPress is to showcase publishers using premium themes or using WordPress in a ‘premium’, innovative way.

Arena Magazine, published by Emap, is one such publisher using WordPress. Promoted as “the worlds smartest men’s magazine” (content is PG-13), their development agency – New Media Maze – highlights why they selected WordPress:

“We designed and built the blog using backend technology WordPress, having considered several options including Typepad (the technology behind this blog) and Blogger, but quickly found that WordPress far outstrips the others in terms of features and maniability (is that a real word?! Computer says no…). WordPress is open source and there’s a big community around the technology so when you get stuck, help is always close at hand. Some of the clever features of the blog are:

• Full screen images in the background of every page
• The ability to switch between 5 background images whilst on any page
• A ‘text off’ facility which allows the user to view the background photography without text in the way
• A search facility
• View articles by author or by category
• Subscribe to newsletter or RSS feed
• Open comments, so that readers can engage with writers directly on the site

So why did we recommend a blog to Arena when they asked for our advice on creating a web presence for the magazine? Blogging is often viewed as a tool for the masses to publish their thoughts (12 million Americans now blog!) but is less often considered as a corporate communication tool. Which is strange because blogs have all of the features most companies ask for when commissioning a web site:

• Easy to use
• Accessible
• Content management system for easy updating
• Search engine friendly
• Community building

Specifically for Arena it allows the magazine writers to write articles in the morning, and see them published in the afternoon, which is slightly different to the usual monthly publication process. It will also allow them to engage with their readership in new ways, and already we’re seeing readers giving their feedback through the comments feature on the blog.

Eventually as traffic grows, the site could become a new revenue channel for Arena through advertising and e-commerce, but for the time being Arena are happy to give the web a taste of what’s in the magazine and drive subscriptions to the magazine through a link to a web form.”

Source:
http://publisherblog.automattic.com/2008/01/29/arena-magazine-selects-wordpress/
&
http://www.newmediamaze.com/index.php/2006/07/21/new-media-maze-launches-arena-magazines-blog/