What’s Watt as an on-line magazine – dubbed e-What’s Watt – has taken on a life of its own since it was introduced earlier this year, proving itself to be popular, accessible, readable and offering variety of content in ways that are beyond the capacity of the print version of the magazine.
e-What’s Watt was launched in the highly flexible and versatile “news website” format for the first time as the June 2021 issue of the magazine, coinciding with its publication in its traditional hard-copy form.
“In line with the general trend in the magazine industry in this direction – trade magazines especially – this marked a decisive shift by the group into relying primarily on deploying a digital magazine, as opposed to a printed magazine, as the most suitable and effective medium for spreading group news, achievements and other matters of interest in the marketplace, including of course among our own employees,” said Andries Mthethwa, ACTOM’s Chairman, whose responsibilities include managing the preparation and publication of What’s Watt.
A spot survey among readers conducted by the group’s Marketing department shortly after the June issue of e-What’s Watt was made available confirmed that readers are overwhelmingly in favour of the change.
Compared with the hard-copy version, it was found to be far more easily accessible and readable.
“In addition, e-What’s Watt offers a variety of user-friendly functions that are beyond the scope of a print magazine to supply. To name just one example, a reader of e-What’s Watt wanting to find information on a particular topic of interest can do so instantly at the press of a button,” Andries remarked.
e-What’s Watt may be found at https://whatswatt.actom.co.za or on the ACTOM website www.actom.co.za by clicking on the ‘What’s Watt magazine’ tab under the tab ‘About ACTOM’.
“It is a sub-domain of the ACTOM website and has all the interactive features and flexibility of a modern online news publication,” said Debby Riddle, ACTOM’s Group Marketing Officer.
The Home Page displays all stories in the current issue of the magazine in abbreviated form.
These are listed under the group divisions that those stories belong to, or in the case of stories relating to the group as a whole they are listed under the “Corporate” heading, while stories about individual staff-members and the like are listed under the heading “Our People”.
An alternative route for accessing the magazine’s content is via the menu at the top of the Home Page. This menu includes a tab entitled “Search Inside”, which enables a reader to type in a subject of his own choice, resulting in any stories in which the named subject is mentioned being displayed.
Access to the archive is also provided. “This means any reader seeking info on a particular subject is not only directed to stories in the current issue dealing with it, but also stories in previous issues of e-What’s Watt that contain stories on the named subject,” said Debby.
Andries concluded: “The flexibility that the new online version of the magazine affords of being able to include other material that can’t be included in the print version provides a golden opportunity to group businesses to impart extra useful information to readers via additional images, video clips, animated illustrations and links to other articles on the same or a similar subject to that covered in a What’s Watt article.”
