Sport24 grows up, leaves the 24.com nest

As such, the design was governed by the portal's look and feel, and the breaking news came directly from big brother News24.

Explains editor and publisher Andrew Lanning, “This is not a break away from News24 by any stretch of the imagination. They are the undisputed kings of breaking news, so all this move does is allow them to concentrate on what they do best, and give us an opportunity to offer the reader, a little more. All that will happen is that the relationship will change a little in that it will now be Sport24 [www.sport24.co.za] providing News24 with their breaking sports news, meaning that when you open a sport story on News24, you will open it on Sport24, which will then offer the reader a richer sports content environment.”

The new content management system gives the team much more autonomy with regard to adding content to the site.

“We will keep to our core, that being to offer the latest breaking sport news - fastest, but also dig a lot deeper to offer the likes of fixtures, results, logs, expert opinion from columnists, latest video highlights from SuperSport, legendary picture galleries, PC wallpapers, longer features, TV times, and a seriously comprehensive event calendar - all in an environment that allows you to really enjoy that thing so close to our hearts - sport!” says managing editor, Garrin Lambley.

With regard to embracing the “Web 2.0” world, Lanning says, “It is not just about the people working at Sport24. In fact, far from it, it is about the reader. So if your Internet world is all about FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, SpeakerBox, BlueWorld or whatever is next in the line of social networking crazes, Sport24's job is to find a way for you to stay in touch with the sporting world using widgets which interface with those platforms.”

“It's also not only about the content our editors put up on the site,” he continues. “Yes, we hope for that to remain the backbone given the skills our journalists have acquired, but we want readers to interact with the site - be it going mad commenting on our columns, writing a blog about their morning run along the Durban beachfront, uploading a picture or video of themselves and their mates at Coca Cola Park, rating a story using Laaik It, posting a story on their Facebook profile or making a prediction on SuperBru...

“Sport24 is a platform for readers to interact with not only our editorial team, but the South African sporting community at large.”

The core Sport24 team that makes the site tick consists of:

• Garrin Lambley - managing editor
  
• Francois Krige - evening producer
  
• Ray Silinga - morning producer
  
• Noeleen Vorster - Friday and special projects producer
  
• Ray Kilfoil - multi media editor
  
• Rob Houwing - chief writer
  
• David Brooke - commercial manger