The Washington Post to test new web experience for expanding readership

Following the success of The Washington Post's new tablet app, first launched on the Amazon Fire tablet last year, The Post will begin testing ways to expand that experience to the web.

"Based on the success of our new tablet app, we decided to experiment with different ways to carry that experience to the Web," said Martin Baron, executive editor of The Washington Post. "We think it could be an excellent way to both provide users of the app a seamless experience as they navigate to the web, and to continue expanding our national and global audience, particularly among Millennials, whose readership of The Post is growing steadily."

A subset of mobile readers who click on a shared link will be taken to a new version of The Post's site (Washingtonpost.com/rweb), which will evolve over the coming months, based on their feedback.

"We are seeing the benefits of rapid iteration and experimentation. We are paying close attention to what our customers are telling us and responding accordingly," said Shailesh Prakash, chief technology officer of The Washington Post. "The only path to success is to try, test, learn and adapt. There is no 'done.'"

This testing is happening concurrent with the redesign of The Post's existing homepage and web experience to continually improve the site for The Post's most dedicated readers.

"We are focused on our readers first. That means serving our most loyal readers as well as working to attract new readers around the world," said Baron. "We have a lot of momentum right now, adding more unique visitors in the first quarter of this year over last year than any individual news and information site in the United States."

The full suite of products, including tablet and phone apps for iOS and Android, will be available to readers later this summer.