Guest Articles

Tuesday
November 3
2015

NextBillion Editor

Welcome to the New NextBillion: As we celebrate 10 years online, we unveil a comprehensively redesigned website

Emerging economies – and the businesses that serve them – have come a long way in the past decade. And so has NextBillion. Today represents another key step in our evolution, as we unveil a comprehensively redesigned website.

From Asia to Africa, countries once mired in extreme poverty now are among the world’s most vibrant economies. The companies serving these growing markets are revitalizing entire industries – and in some cases – creating new ones, while engaging many low income consumers for the first time. Ten years ago, for instance, the mobile phone was a luxury item that few at the BoP could afford. Now mobile networks are profitably serving even the poorest communities, while providing a vital lifeline for other businesses that hope to do so.

At NextBillion, we’ve chronicled these changes every step of the way, by continuously expanding and refining our coverage. So it is appropriate that this new website, the third version since NextBillion first went online in 2005, is part of that process, and happens to coincide with our 10th anniversary.

 

An Evolution in Design

Our new platform allows us to present up-to-the-minute coverage, while preserving our ten years of legacy content in a way that’s clear and easy to navigate. Here are few things you should know about the new site:

  • The Categories/Topics pages sort blogs and news articles by topic, to help you find exactly what you’re looking for – from Agriculture to Technology.
  • On the NextBillion Series page, all of our in-depth blog and video series are gathered into individual pages, which are easy to view and share.
  • We continue to offer two highly focused sub-blogs – NextBillion Financial Innovation and NextBillion Health Care – and we have plans to launch a third one in early 2016.
  • You can now sort news by topic area on our News page, and by region on our Regions tab – and we’re planning to make posts and events sortable by region in the near future.
  • The Categories/Topics tab allows you to sort both blog posts and news by specific subjects and sectors.
  • Our new Calendar lets you view each month’s events, and sort them by specific date.
  • We value reader comments, so we’re highlighting your most thought-provoking observations in the Featured Discussion section on our homepage. And stay tuned, as we have plans to expand that section beyond the pages of NextBillion in the coming weeks.
  • For now, all Jobs listings are free, and you may simply fill out a brief form and submit it to us via email to get your ad online. We have suspended our paid, or Featured Jobs service for the time being. (We’re considering whether to continue to offer Featured Jobs or to bring it back in a different format.)

An Evolution in Thinking

However, we didn’t just redesign the site. We took our ten-year milestone as an opportunity to reassess our approach by asking a key question: What unique value can NextBillion bring to the development through enterprise community? In answering it, we took into account the fact that many news organizations, websites, blogs and web forums now include social enterprise in their coverage. But we’re different in three significant ways:

  • We focus exclusively on social enterprise and investment;
  • We allow entrepreneurs of all stages to share their on-the-ground experiences – alongside the views of researchers, executives, academics and other thought leaders – in an inclusive discussion forum;
  • We don’t shy away from the controversial topics and frank opinions that accompany market approaches in low-income economies.

These elements of NextBillion’s brand will continue to inform our editorial approach, as we chronicle the ongoing evolution of base of the pyramid communities and the businesses that serve them. But over time, we’ve come to view our role as not just originators of content, but also as aggregators. So our content will continue to consist of original interviews, features and analysis from thought leaders and guest writers eager to share their insights (and sometimes defend their opinions) with the NextBillion community. But we’ll also serve up thought-provoking cross-posts curated from across the online global development community, and highlight each day’s essential stories and events on our expanded News and Calendar sections, as well as through our weekly roundup and other editor-written posts.

Please let us know what you think of the new site, and about our coverage in general – your feedback will be instrumental in helping us refine our site design and editorial approach as we take NextBillion into the next decade.

Thank you and enjoy the new NextBillion.

-The NextBillion Editorial Team

 

Categories
Social Enterprise
Tags
Base of the Pyramid, social enterprise