18 comments

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  Rob Hyndman

  2 years ago

  For me, a big part of the appeal would be socializing with other readers. No offense intended. :)
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  Tony

  2 years ago

  Question for you, Mat -- did adding social elements to the Globe and Mail do anything for its bottom line? Traffic? Ad Revenue? Actual subscribership?
  
  Cheers
  t @ dji / bh
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  Joseph Hunkins

  2 years ago

  Good question - will mom and pop wind up disliking or just ignoring the changes. The internet enthusiasm echo chamber is very large but it's a tiny fraction of all the interested folks in the world. Ultimately they will determine how this all shakes out.
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  Mary Specht

  2 years ago

  I love it. The people who've left negative comments for USA Today must be a fading minority. USAT is right on with this move.
  
  The thing that throws me off about the recommend feature: from using reddit, digg and others, I expect my vote to move the article up in the list. All it does it change the number next to the headline.
  
  I understand the USAT.com editors want to retain control of their pages. But, at least in the article comments, voting for something should move it up. This way I don't have to sort through all the irrelevant or useless comments.
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  Mathew

  2 years ago

  No offence taken, Rob :-)
  
  And Tony, without going into too much detail (or I would have to kill you) adding comments and other social elements has definitely increased traffic, and since that in turn affects our online revenue I think it qualifies as a win-win.
  
  Thanks for the comment, Joe.
  
  And Mary, I think your point is a good one. People who are used to Digg-style voting are used it behaving in a certain way. Papers like USA Today will have to be aware of that if they want to incorporate similar social features.
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  Mark Bradley

  2 years ago

  I cross posted an excerpt of your story to my blog with this comment
  
  " An interesting comment on changes to the newspaper. Of course the Sydney Morning Herald has been doing this for over 18 months so maybe whilst downunder we are often laggard bloggers, some of our better media are leaders in new media approaches."
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  Tony

  2 years ago

  Great to hear it Mat -- since I don't want you to kill me, can you point to any other enterprises which have published this kind of information? Or, are they holding that close to their chest ... ?
  
  Cheers
  t
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  Mathew

  2 years ago

  Thanks for that, Mark -- glad to hear others are on the social networking train as well.
  
  And Tony, I don't know that anyone has actually published details about traffic or revenue as far as the impact of social features goes. I've come across some comments by editors at the Guardian and the BBC, but they were pretty general.
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  Mark Bradley

  2 years ago

  This thread might also be interested in this post published today on a similar vein:
  http://antipodean.squarespace.com/aptus-strateg...
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  Ryan

  2 years ago

  Revenue? Bottom-line?
  
  Uh, no, taking a newspaper.com social is about building a brand, joining the 21st Century, and taking your mouth away from the megaphone.
  
  USA Today isn't exactly the most hip and relevant stack of dead trees on the planet, so building a better brand online is one of the ways they'll survive.
  
  Yes, there will be people who have to walk into conference rooms with publishers and spit out some traffic data (hint: comments and lists of most-recommended stories increase page views), but the value added to the brand will have a higher ROI if you're into that sort of thing.
  
  Crap, I just said "value added" and "ROI" in the same graf. Been hanging around with the marketing folks too much...
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  gzino

  2 years ago

  Very difficult for paper to become social network. Especially USA TODAY. Their content is anti-community: wide breadth, shallow depth. Communities focus around narrow breadth, deep depth. Glad they added the features, but features don't create communities.
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  Sameer

  2 years ago

  I think the comments feature will definitely help drive traffic here given the demographic.
  
  Say there’s a modest adoption of comments, you have to consider the significant multiple of repeat and new visitors that don't comment but come back to read comments. I reckon that the ratio of 'comentors' to those on the sidelines just reading is at least 1:50 at the minimum.
  
  Not sure if a social network is a practical goal for a newspaper such as USAT but if you evaluate social features on a piecemeal basis, some are total winners for this demographic. Comments being most lucrative.
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  Karl

  2 years ago

  Great question.
  
  I think good local newspapers already act as social networks for their communities. It's just taken them far too long to realize how to translate that to the web.
  
  I wonder if the traffic and engagement increases will be enough to attract advertising that offsets loses incurred in the papers.
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  Mathew

  2 years ago

  Gzino, you are right -- features don't create communities.
  
  And Karl, I think you are also right and that good local newspapers are already at the hub of a social network or community.
  
  As for the question about whether engagement and traffic can boost advertising levels enough to make up for losses on the paper side, I think that is the billion-dollar question everyone would like an answer to :-)
  
  Thanks to all for their comments.
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  Rohan Jayasekera

  2 years ago

  Mathew, you asked "But do readers want to socialize with their newspaper, or with the journalists who work there?"
  
  I think many readers have no particular interest in socializing with their newspaper, nor its other readers - but would like to socialize with the journalists who work there. My subscription to the Globe continues thanks largely to its columnists.
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  Mathew

  2 years ago

  Thanks, Rohan -- I guess you and Rob disagree on that point :-)
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  Rob Hyndman

  2 years ago

  Well, maybe some columnists. :)
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  Loconut - Perth News

  1 year ago

  I think the social interaction on news sites is still almost entirely amongst readers - I can think of very few examples here in Australia (except for the odd Fairfax blog) whereby journalists actively participate in the discussions.
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