Transcript Web 2.0 Poster Child Conversation

What Role will 2.0
Play in the
Newsroom
Geoff Wilson
Atex
Twitter – Web 2.0 Poster Child
Conversation – The New Old Idea
“The best comments are often way better than the posts
that generated them.”
– Fred Wilson, VC
Why Twitter Works
Micro-blogging platform where everyone contributes.
A reply is a comment is a post is a conversation.
Real people talking to real people cross cutting
boundaries.
The API has 10x the traffic of the website.
“the amount of activity around the API has been the most
surprising experience”
– Biz Stone, Founder
Newspapers – Not Quite Web 2.0
Newspaper blogs fail to increase the public dialogue
When hosted by a newspaper…
80% of bloggers do not respond to comments
Almost 25% of blogs had no posts in the 5 day period
“the results of our study call into question whether
newspapers are wasting valuable staff resources"
from a study of US newspaper blogs
by Ball State & Nevada Universities
Newsrooms with a Web 2.0 Future
Integration
Comments
RSS
Communication
Convergence
Expanding Your Reach
The New Audience
Media – In all Shapes & Sizes
U.S. online users watched 12 billion online videos in
May, up 45 percent from the same period in 2007.
comScore Video Metrix
Fred, the fictitious creation of 14 year old Lucas, has
45 million views of his videos on YouTube.
Driven by new smart phones, mobile revenue is
predicted to increase 16% annually
SNL Kagan, MediaPost
Metrics – More than just circulation
Mine click-stream data.
Use search engines to
track the conversation.
Show metrics to users.
Include web metrics in the
editorial environment.
Provide benefit to the user
and they’ll embrace 1984.
Classification
Expensive to do right – No easy solution.
Find benefits to classified data before investing in
classification; start small.
Web 2.0 “cheats” and outsources to their users.
Caveats
Maintain trust in your brand.
Quality & Speed – There is a trade-off.
Business and editorial processes must change;
technology is an enabler, not the answer.
Recommendations
Web 2.0 is a two-way medium. Print ways don’t always
work on the web.
1
It is all about conversation. Engage your readers in
discussion.
2
Try new channels for hosting the conversation. Mobile.
APIs. Devices.
3
Let your readers personalize their experience with your
content.
4
Make use of the rich metrics available to drive editorial
decisions.
5
Questions