New Wall Street Journal features

Have you seen the revamped Wall Street Journal recently, like in the past month or so? It's really good.

The most obvious change is the Saturday edition. The new Saturday issue ("Weekend Edition") has similar leisurely features (on the front page, and in the new "Pursuits" section) as well as wrap-ups from Friday's finance markets, investing, and hard news. I have seen some pundits pan the Saturday edition (the first issue was a yawner, apparently) but I've read every Saturday issue since then, and I think it's great.

But there are other changes, too. The regular sections have tweaked the formulae they use for news and markets coverage for instance, bumping up the prominence of career-related articles.

Additionally, the Monday issue has a great new front-page feature, "What's Ahead." This is a prominent roundup of expected news and financial issues in the week to come -- court trials, earnings reports, the release of economic data, and elections. How come they didn't think of this before?

We hear a lot of whining from traditional press about how they can't compete in a new media environment, but I think the WSJ is on the right track. They're not just clawing after the latest trend -- podcasts, portals, or whatever. They are actually evaluating what people like best about the existing product and adjusting the product accordingly, as well as adding new features that people seem to appreciate.

I have access to both the electronic and print versions, but I really prefer the print version -- it was a great read to start with, and the new features make it even better.