The Verge's New Homepage: Why It Looks Different and What It Means

The Verge, a major technology news website, has redesigned its homepage with a new two-column layout. One side shows stories that editors have chosen as most important. The other side shows every new article in the order it was published, with no editorial preference applied.

This is a notable shift. Most news websites show you a single mixed feed where editors and algorithms decide which stories appear where. The Verge is now separating those two things deliberately, letting you choose which kind of browsing experience you want.

How the New Design Works

Imagine walking into a bookstore and finding two tables at the entrance. One table displays books the store manager has handpicked and arranged by theme — the books she thinks you should know about. The other table simply shows every new book that arrived today, in the order it came in, with no editorial judgment applied.

That's what The Verge's two-column homepage does.

The left column shows curated editorial highlights — stories the Verge's editors believe are important and article collections organized by topic. The right column is a live feed of the latest articles and quick posts, sorted only by publication time.

The design is intentionally unfinished. The Verge describes it as "designed to evolve over time," with planned improvements coming soon rather than a completed product launching fully formed.

What's Coming Next

The Verge is planning to add dark mode — a darker color scheme that is easier on the eyes at night. They are also working on letting readers customize their homepage based on their preferences, so different users can see different layouts.

The company is also creating a public roadmap showing readers what features are in development and what will change next. This approach is common in software companies but unusual for news websites, which typically redesign in secret and reveal the final version all at once.

Where This Came From

This homepage redesign builds on work The Verge started in September 2022. Back then, they launched Storystream, a feed that looks and works like Twitter or a social media app. It lets Verge journalists share expert commentary alongside links to their own reporting and to stories published elsewhere on the internet. The feed even embedded content directly from TikTok and Reddit.

Since 2022, The Verge has been constantly refining and improving Storystream. Last year, the company moved the entire website's backend — the unseen machinery that runs the site — from their own custom-built system to WordPress. WordPress is well-established software that powers millions of websites. The switch allowed The Verge's engineers to build new features faster instead of maintaining their own system.

New Ways to Follow Stories and Journalists

Alongside the homepage redesign, The Verge launched the ability to follow specific journalists or topic areas. If you follow a reporter or a topic, you will see a personalized feed on your own homepage showing just the stories relevant to what you follow. The company also sends daily emails to people who follow specific topics or journalists, highlighting relevant new coverage.

This feature is designed to turn casual readers into registered users — people who create an account and visit regularly. Once someone creates an account, The Verge can build a relationship with them directly, rather than relying on search engines or social media to send readers their way.

Why This Design Makes Sense

Analysis: The two-column approach reflects something important about how people actually use websites.

When you visit a news homepage, you might be in one of two moods. Sometimes you want editorial guidance — you want to know what the editors think matters most today. Other times you want to monitor what just happened — you want to see the newest coverage, regardless of editorial opinion.

Different people have different needs. Even the same person might visit the homepage with different intentions at different times. Rather than forcing everyone into a single experience, The Verge's design lets both approaches coexist on one page.

Newsletters: Building a Direct Relationship

The Verge is also expanding the newsletters it sends by email. The company is launching a daily flagship newsletter alongside multiple subscriber-exclusive offerings, adding to existing newsletters like Command Line (written by Alex Heath) and Notepad (written by Tom Warren).

The logic is straightforward: if you sign up for a newsletter, you receive the Verge's content directly in your email inbox instead of depending on the website or social media. This builds a direct relationship with readers and reduces reliance on search engines and social platforms to drive traffic.

Choosing WordPress Over Custom Software

Worth flagging: The Verge's decision to use WordPress rather than building and maintaining its own publishing platform is meaningful.

A publication the size of The Verge could certainly afford to build custom software. But they chose not to. This reflects a broader shift across the media industry — more and more news organizations are moving away from custom systems and toward established platforms like WordPress or similar software. The decision frees up engineering teams to focus on features readers see and experience, rather than maintaining invisible infrastructure.

What This Could Mean for Other News Sites

The Verge is influential in technology coverage, and its decisions often influence how other news organizations think about their own platforms. The two-column homepage approach could prompt similar experiments at other major news sites, especially those that cover breaking news alongside long-form reporting and need to balance both.

The emphasis on letting readers personalize their experience and follow specific journalists also reflects pressure from social media platforms like Twitter and TikTok, which have trained people to expect feeds customized to their interests rather than one-size-fits-all editorial layouts.

How This Works in Practice

The shorter homepage design may reduce the number of visitors who arrive and immediately leave without reading anything. By putting two different types of content within reach on one page, readers have multiple options — editorial picks if you trust the editors, or a raw feed if you prefer to see everything in real time.

The shorter page may also load faster, especially on phones and tablets where speed matters for reader experience. The ability to customize your homepage means you might eventually see a different design than someone else visiting the same website — each person seeing what matters most to them.

In this author's view: The strategy of launching with a simple foundation and improving it gradually, while telling readers what is coming next, suggests confidence that people will adapt to gradual change. It also suggests willingness to learn from how readers actually behave rather than assuming what they want before launch.