Timesofmalta.com celebrates 25th anniversary

The online version of Times of Malta is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

Timesofmalta.com was launched on June 1, 2000, offering newspaper readers the added benefit of being able to read the news 24 hours a day ‘on line’.

Up until then, the Times web page had served as a simple bulletin board on which only headlines were published.

Following the launch of timesofmalta.com, readers could access news articles from the previous day’s paper, as well as “editorials, opinion columns, business news, sports, exchange rates, weather news and e-mail facilities”.

The first major story on the site was a grim one, concerning the death of a French diver whose body had been found in Maltese waters.

The Sunday Times of Malta front-page article from the time quotes Kurt Storace, who created the website, reassuring readers that the site would not replace the paper.

“If you look at current trends in the media, you see people opting for the electronic...  it is giving an added service to readers,” Storace said.

Twenty-five years later, Storace described working on the website as an exciting time.“We used to have to upload all the articles manually from the newspaper’s desktop publishing software and then convert them all one by one to HTML. It used to take hours.”

He remembers the public’s reaction as being enthusiastic. “We used to get phone calls asking us how to access the website,” he said.

Chris Scicluna, a Times of Malta deputy editor who went on to become online editor, recalls that the management of the day was uneasy about the prospect of online news.

“There was a debate over how much content should be put online, and whether the website would affect the advertising revenue of the paper,” he said.

In 2007, the website underwent a major transformation, moving away from only publishing news that was already in the paper towards breaking news, as well as video content.

“That’s when the website really took off. Before then, it was very basic and did not get a lot of traffic. The introduction of the revamped website brought a new dimension to the site thanks to immediacy.”

Shortly after, a comments functionality was added.

“Facebook was virtually unknown in Malta at the time, so the comments allowed for interaction between the paper and its readers.”

Bertrand Borg, Times of Malta’s current online editor, said the website was a market leader when it came to delivering factual, accurate and timely news from day one.

“And while the site has changed dramatically over the past two decades, those principles continue to underpin our work to this day.” Despite several redesigns, Borg noted, the vast majority of changes to the site had happened behind the scenes.

“All throughout, timesofmalta.com remained Malta’s number one news site. I have no doubt that it will continue to be the country’s most trusted source of news in the decades to come.”