-------- Original Message --------
Subject: E-Media Tidbits - NYT: Left Hand, Meet Right Hand
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:14:53 -0400
From: Poynter Institute <newsletters@poynter.org>
To: <clift@publicus.net>
Poynter online
E-Media Tidbits
Posted by Amy Gahran 11:29:07 AM
Conversation Ain't What It Used to Be
Today I'm attending Poynter's seminar on "Dialog and Diatribe." Mainly,
it's about how and why news organizations might expand further into
conversational media. Mostly we've been discussing blog comments and discussion
forums. While these are popular tools that may seem newfangled to many media
pros, they only scratch the surface in terms of how people conduct public
conversations today, especially online.
It seems to me the demographics of this seminar group may circumscribe our
discussions. We're almost exclusively baby boomers and GenXers in this room.
Plus, we're almost all media professionals. (Three local non-journalists were
invited, but only one remains today.) I only met one recent college grad in the
session, and there are certainly no teens present.
Most participants seem to share many assumptions, preferences, and experiences
of online media. It seems to me we could, and should, expand our discussion
beyond those boundaries. Personally, I think some approaches to online media
which may not be especially popular with this crowd offer significant
opportunities to broaden our options in practical, immediate ways.
Here are a few tools and strategies to consider about conversational, social,
and online media: Highlight key contributions prominently. Almost all news
organizations which allow comments or host online discussion relegate those
conversations to a sideshow role -- definitely secondary to the editorial
content, with little if any indication of how the conversation influences the
newsroom. This approach offers scant motivation for folks to offer thoughtful
contributions.
I like what Slate.com does: They highlight the best recent forum posts. Check
out the main page of Slate's discussion forum The Fray
(http://fray.slate.com/discuss/) . Consider how this approach could enhance the
quality of your public conversation, as well as provide timely, engaging fodder
for online, print, and broadcast news.
Roll your own Digg. Social news sites like Digg (http://digg.com) allow
people to share and rank news stories, blog posts, podcasts, and other types of
content are extremely popular. This approach can offer even more value when
focused on specific topics or communities. For instance, the popular
environmental news and community site Treehugger created Hugg (http://hugg.com)
, which is like Digg for the environment. The free tool Pligg
(http://pligg.com/) helps power such community news sites. Also, you can
filter and integrate Digg content through Digg's API (http://apidoc.digg.com/)
.
What if you created one for your community, or around key local topics or
demographics? What do local teens, seniors, or other groups think is worth
covering? Letting them set their own news agendas might tell you a lot about
what matters most to them. Distribute conversations, not just stories. Many
(perhaps most) news organizations now offer RSS feeds of their headlines,
blogs, or news stories -- but not for comments or forums. However, providing
comment and forum feeds and submitting them to the major feed aggregators (like
Technorati (http://technorati.com) and Google Blog Search
(http://blogsearch.google.com/) ) broaden your audience by by making all of
your content and conversation easier to find through popular search engines.
This can not only increase traffic but attract new people to your online
community.
If you do this, however, it helps to moderate comments or at least syndicate
them on a delay, so you have a chance to pull obscene posts, unsubstantiated
allegations, spam, libel, or hate speech before it hits the feed. Once it's out
there, it's out there -- so removing a comment or forum post doesn't really
make it gone. Microblogging. Tools like Twitter (http://twitter.com)
(which Poynter's Mallary Jean Tenore , who is definitely not a Baby Boomer,
covered here (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=128588) and
here (http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=128918) ), Jaiku
(http://jaiku.com) , Pownce (http://pownce.com) , and Tumblr
(http://tumblr.com) are great for quickly publishing very short posts or
updates, especially from mobile devices. Why not microblog intriguing or
important community discussions, as well as more traditional coverage? If you
do this, make sure your conversation venues (blog or news comments, or forums)
have mobile in
terfaces so mobile phone and "crackberry" users can easily chime in.
Wikis. The really cool thing about these collaboratively authored documents
is that they work best in discussions where consensus is the goal. For
instance, building a community resource (such as a survey of the local
watershed), or brainstorming solutions to local problems (such as education
funding). Differing perspectives get their own pages to allow full exploration,
and the consensus comes through links and discussion pages. Registration and
history pages provides accountability, and (depending on the wiki tool or
service) you may be able to offer various gradations of editing permissions.
Audio commenting. Not everyone is a writer. Some community members are more
inclined to participate in conversations by voice. Services like K7.net turn
voice mail messages into MP3 audio that can easily be integrated into a
podcast, or dowloaded/streamed from your site. Depending on your community's
needs and preferences, the human voice can enhance or hinder conversation.
...Each of these options has pros and cons. They involve initial setup, some
direct or indirect costs, some maintenance, and ongoing attention. However they
might also further a news organization's goals by strengthening community ties
and awareness. But the cool part is that it's easy to conduct small,
inexpensive experiments with any of these options.
So if you're unsure or skeptical, just experiment with something small.
Remember that, from your community's perspective, your site probably isn't the
point
(http://www.contentious.com/archives/2007/08/21/its-not-about-your-site-anymore/)
-- so adapt your business model accordingly
(http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=129782) . See how
conversational media works, especially its distributed nature. Most
importantly, talk about it -- not just in your newsroom, but in your
community. In public.
(Here's my other post for this seminar, on conversational journalism
(http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=129449) . Don't miss the
comments.)