We released another new version of the BusinessDesk website last night.
This will have minimal impact on current subscribers but gives us a lot more functionality in the background.
One change you will notice is that you can now “Log in with Google” and link your BusinessDesk account to Google. After you’ve done that you will always be logged in to BusinessDesk when you are logged in to Google. We hope this makes the site a little easier for users on mobile phones, who click from stories in the Daily Digest over to their web browser and constantly get asked to log in.
We are not sharing other details or personal information with Google. This is not an attempt to “grab your data”.
New users will be able to use a credit card they already have stored with Google to subscribe to BusinessDesk.
Google then automatically tells us name and email, but no other details.
In an often-requested upgrade, you are now also able to specify which of our journalists you want sent directly to your inbox. For example, if you want everything Brian Gaynor writes instantly, you can turn on News Alerts for his stories in your settings panel here.
Next up
Our incredible tech team is already working on various big developments to launch later this year, including our own phone and tablet app, sharemarket data for stories about listed companies and tweaks to the homepage, category pages and a few other places.
We’ll also launch a new and comprehensive business technology section next month. We’re recruiting for that at the moment and we’ve had some excellent applicants.
Who are our readers?
BusinessDesk now has about 65,000 readers each month (advertisers call them unique users). Our readers are 54% female and across a broad range of ages with peaks from age 25-34 and then 55-64. The number one job description people tell us is “director”.
Getting too many emails?
Many of our subscribers like to receive every story we write, when we write, direct to their inboxes.
For other subscribers, that is all a bit much. If we are sending you an avalanche of News Alerts that you'd rather not receive, head to your settings page and turn off “Send me everything”. Sanity will return to your inbox.
SME hit hard by covid?
You’ll be seeing a few new advertisers on the site. Many of these are smaller brands and companies that have been hit hard by covid-19 and we have given them free advertising. We have grown so fast we have quite a lot of spare space and it feels like the right thing to do. If your business could benefit from this, please get in touch.
Likewise, if you work for a company that could do with some extra BusinessDesk subscriptions, I’d love to hear from you, too.
As always, let me know if you have any feedback. I’m on [email protected].
