MyUSATODAYSpace.com?
Monday 5 March 2007 - Filed under social media
USA TODAY relaunched with social news features. Will it usher in a new era of traditional media and become a serious threat to services like NewsVine or even Digg?
Although I think it’s a bold move and a step in the right direction, I sense that the impact of USA TODAY incorporating social features into its service will have less of an impact than many think.
On the surface it looks like they simply hacked in a white label solution from Pluck. This is rarely a great way to jump start a real community. Also, the front page is now a collection of links and many people are commenting on the features page that it makes it hard for them to find real news quickly (many are threatening to jump ship to make another news site their home page).
Pluck: Leaders in Social Media
Launching social features into a large readership
All the social media sites that are successful in their own right grew up with their communities. Digg and Reddit launched silently and built up their community one person at a time. This allowed them to gradually improve their service as more and more users came on board and provided feedback. The current product is as much a creation of its users as much as the companies that operate the service.
UT’s relaunch is more similar to the reinvention of Netscape’s in that they’re essentially targeting a large existing audience.
How much control are you willing to give the community?
Avatars and the ability to keep track of your activities or finding more personalized news is definitely a nice feature. However, how much more control are they willing to give to their community? What are the incentives to join the community for people not already a part of the current readership?
If joining the community gave me the power to influence what hits the front page of USA TODAY and how prominently it features in whatever small way, that would be a very powerful incentive to me. Another would be how good the personalization is.
If the only reason to incorporate more social features is to lock in the current USA TODAY readership as an army of loyal commenters then that might have some limited success in building loyalty but might not drive new growth. It could even backfire and alienate the readership if not thought through properly.
How fast the pace of change?
Unleashing a community on the readership is only the first step. How much feedback are they willing to take and incorporate? Like all large media properties even if the main people in charge of the project are in tune with the community, it might not be easy to push those changes. This relaunch like any web service is only the first step and the goal is still not in sight. What the company thinks a community wants and what the community wants are two different things. Factor in the wisdom that consumers don’t really know exactly want they want and you have a very tricky change process at hand.
Just look at the pages upon pages of comments(a lot of it negative) on the features announcement and you’ll get an idea of the challenges ahead.
I’m sure USA TODAY wont be the last and someone will eventually succeed in really providing a seamless experience. However, if done wrong, it can only alienate the existing readership and cause more harm than good. You need to have the commitment to community and speed for change.
USATODAY relaunched its website yesterday with a parade of new features that will add a significant social layer to the site that wasn’t there before. The website is no longer a simple hose spouting news at readers. It has become a full on social network, integrating user generated content in intelligent and interesting ways.
Quick guide to new USATODAY.com features – USATODAY.com
Pluck: Leaders in Social Media
2007-03-05 » baron
5 March 2007 @ 10:20 am
Interesting: USAToday…
Anybody with a fascination for Web 2.0 websites owes it to themselves to check out how USAToday, the daily national newspaper, has redesigned their website. They’ve basically taken a huge leap ahead into the social news future.
Who knows if that …
5 March 2007 @ 11:25 pm
Off topic, but why do you bother having that Digg This button? You’ve been silent banned by Digg. Try doing an URL search for baron.vc on Digg. Actually, this happens so often lately that I’m not even sure if certain domains are being silent banned or bury-weighted so that it’s easier to bury them. Maybe it’s just very, very easy to bury down a story. Still, I wonder how the hell does any story reach the front page lately. Check out my article over at 901am for more info.
6 March 2007 @ 3:22 am
My comment at techcrunch here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/04/bravo-to-usatoday/#comment-1147294
6 March 2007 @ 7:56 pm
@baron: thanks for the kind words. As far as comparisons with TechCrunch go, I think that they’re great for breaking news, but I’m trying to go in-depth, and really give opinions on services instead of simply noting that they exist. And yes, my site (as well as many, many others) is basically banned by Digg, although it’s not officially noted anywhere. I can write a compelling how-to article or a completely neutral review and it will still get buried, which would never have happened before the latest changes in Digg’s algorithm.
Luckily, I can survive without Digg, but it’s a damn shame for all those smaller quality blogs who saw Digg as an opportunity to really give it all into their writing, because the payback and the attention were a great prize for their effort.
It’s also very surprising how little impact this has had on the web. Back in the day every small shift in Digg’s algorithm caused an outcry. Now, hundreds of sites are silently banned but no one seems to notice. It’s a weasely move by Digg: they didn’t do this to any of the A-list sites. Check how many times a story from wired.com was buried. There were over hundred of articles in the last week, out of which maybe 10-15 were buried, and those were only obvious duplicates. Based on the negativity of Wired towards Digg, I’d estimate that some of their stories get buried a lot, but actual burying by users doesn’t seem to matter any more.
On the topic of baron.vc, I enjoyed your recent articles, especially the interview with Digg’s favourite photographer. Keep up the good work.
7 March 2007 @ 9:28 am
Stan,
I think that people have simply gotten tired of the rollercoaster ride that Digg plays with their algorithm. We’d have to fill the blogosphere with Digg news everyday if that’s the case. I think I have several potential indiscrepancies with Digg that would have caused an outcry back in the day but I just don’t feel like wasting time going in depth.
As you rightly point out, Digg is becoming more of a collaborative news aggregator with the random link thrown into the mix. It’s funny how they’re becoming like a user-powered Spotplex. We’ll see how this saga turns out. Either way, in the long-term it’s their loss and not ours.