AOL takes page from blogs, relaunches news

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc. plans to launch a test of its overhauled news portal on Tuesday, drawing influences from the uncluttered design of popular Internet blogs.

The online division of the world's largest media company said it aimed to keep readers returning and to introduce a new generation of media consumers to the site by offering more interactive features such as polls and voting features and user-created news on one page.

AOL news can be found at news.aol.com/

"I truly believe that when you go to most news sites, it's a Web 1.0 world," Lewis D'Vorkin, senior vice president of AOL News and Sports, said, referring to the first generation of Internet sites. "They have rearranged the furniture. We have built new furniture."

AOL's sports site will also relaunch later this week following a similar design model.

D'Vorkin's work has included introducing a blog-like format about a year ago to celebrity gossip Web site TMZ.com, now one of the most closely read sites in Hollywood. TMZ is a joint venture of AOL and Warner Bros.

Like some, but not all, of its mainstream media rivals, AOL News faces a decline in visitors in the past month, according to comScore Media Metrix figures for May.

Even as top news site Yahoo News' traffic rose 8 percent to 33.7 million unique visitors in May, AOL News traffic fell 12 percent to 19.1 million. The New York Times brand site also fell 9 percent to 8.3 million visitors in May.

AOL overhauled its business model last summer, when it decided to give away most of its services away for free to boost online advertising by focusing on its free portal.