Wall Street Journal prepping online redesign launch for September

The Wall Street Journal will launch a design of its Web site during the month of September, Talking Biz News has learned.

According to sources, the redesign will reflect where the paper comes down on the free vs. paid business model of news Web sites. It will be designed to better serve people who come into WSJ.com from the outside without subscriptions and will give them a sense of what the Journal is all about.

But it will continue to serve subscribers by keeping some content behind the pay wall. The redesign is apparently a culmination of two years of work at The Journal

Earlier this month, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch told analysts and investors on a conference call that in the first six months of the year, the number of visitors to the site rose 87.9 percent compared to the same period last year. In July it was over 100 percent increase.

The Web site, which has more than 1.1 million subscribers now, is overseen by Alan Murray, a deputy managing editor at The Journal and executive editor of WSJ.com.