You have to give credit where credit’s due! Marketwatch has been steadily impressing me with their adoption of the upcoming trends for publishing information on the web. They want their readers to digg their articles, or make them del.ici.ious. They’ve launched Marketwatch blogs with three of their most popular contributors, Herb Greenberg, Frank Barnako and Bambi Francisco at the forefront. But what’s new for Marketwatch?

If you’ve clicked the small image at the top of this article, you will see the Marketwatch’s new design launched since July 5th, 2006. Editor-in-chief David Callaway explains the site-wide changes in detail for Marketwatch readers. My personal opinion is that this long overdue change is for the better.

The first thing you’ll notice is the friendly typeface and bigger text size. If you did not know any better, the individual pages actually look like the individual blog pages here at Investorial! Marketwatch made the bold move to push all their advertising to the right column whereas before, it could be scattered all over the pages - on the left, on the right.

Just like Investorial’s own site redesign a couple weeks ago, Marketwatch also strived to better-space its webpage components. Rather on concentrating on more bells and whistles, they went with a simpler, neater presentation which works! The new color palette anchored by a darker green is also asthetically pleasing and more effective (in my opinion) at grabbing reader attention.

Taking a look at the article pages, you’ll notice some ajaxy goodness happening here. At the top is a news headline ticker that informs you about the latest breaking stories. On the right, there’s a box showcasing some of the most popular stories, and also editor picks.

If I had a wish list, it would be for Marketwatch to devise a commenting system. I would not open a comment system to the public, but it would be helpful to see blog trackbacks that are referring to the articles in question, or perhaps a by-invitation comment system where only invited commenters and those they invite can give feedback to the article. It will not only be a discussion board, but potentially valuable sounding board for information to be delivered to MarketWatch and its readers.

Marketwatch is definitely on the right track with this new design and I will be looking for more of its improvements to come!