Some interesting stuff going on at USAToday.com — a fundamental redesign which has a heavy dose of social elements. No longer just about reading the news, elements such as a recommendation engine (a la Digg), user accounts and profiles, tagging and citizen journalism/photography elements encourage participation in the news.
Heady stuff.
Steve Rubel says USAToday.com isn’t going far *enough* — it needs to “go where we already spend our time. RSS, widgets and embedded content would help here. For example, USA Today should let us add our blog, Twitter or Facebook feeds or even embedded YouTube vids to our profile pages.”
And the social web2.0 geek in me says “damn skippy!”
The realist in me, however, tends to think otherwise. Social features and encouragement of the audience WITH the news is all well and good. But, to what audience is this really playing to? Sure, the socialization of information is the future of news. And blogs like this one like to write about it like its the here and now, and if you’re not with it — well, you’re past it. But the reality is that fans of “web2.0″ are a tiny sliver of a hair of the online population at large — and to radically change the format of a major online newspaper, to accomodate those early adopters is incredibly premature.
I am predicting that the vast majority of the net *in general* (nevermind USAToday’s particular audience, who, and chastise me if I’m being techno-elitest, may lack the technical sophistication to appreciate social features) will simply not understand these new features, and clamor for a return to a simpler non-involved news website.
Am I being too drastic?
Maybe. Time will tell, after all, if traffic starts to decline precipitously. But I’m basing this opinion on an example of an “old-school” news portal which dramatically changed their features so that they became a “pure” social play.
Can you guess which one I’m talking about?
Of course, I’m talking about Netscape.
Jason Calacanis can yak all he wants about how “great” Netscape is doing — but facts are that traffic has taken continued to take a dramatic nose dive since it became a social news engine, and strayed away from the traditional news portal [to be fair, 2-4 months into their transition, traffic levels stabilized, but are far from their highs of 2005]. Sure, there are technical reasons for this too — such as the fact that they spun off their email login to a different subdomain (or something), but all things being equal it made sense.
Hey, *I* like social news. I like Digg. But Netscape is an old domain and by switching to an entirely different format which is fairly bleeding edge (and fairly baffling if you’re not interested in it), it alienated many of its older users, who didn’t care for the new format and never came back. If you doubt me, google “bring back old netscape” and you’ll see the kinds of discussions that are going on.
Has the drop in newspaper readership so scared USAToday that they have embraced a technology that is a little beyond its time — and beyond the interests of its users? Will embracing the “social” aspect of news translate into higher traffic and more ad revenue? Or will it act as a stop-gap measure to quell the loss of readership? Or will USAToday “Netscape” itself and find that it may have accelerated downwards itself to a new baseline of traffic?
As I said — time will tell. The geek in me hopes that it will succeed. The realist, however, is feeling smug that it might not.
Other opinions:
- Mat Ingram wonders if we want to socialize with newspapers or the people who work there
- Paul Kedrosky takes the position that these new changes may alienate its installed base of readers
- Stowe Boyd seems to want to be able to use a single point of reference as a social tool rather than many different newspapers trying to be their own social site
- Rex Hammock and Mike Arrington have both dived in with both feet right after Steve Rubel with the feeling like it is a good improvement.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:34 pm | Permalink
It’s risky. They’re committed now, though.
If you’ve been to the site, you’ll see the predictable reader reaction:
“I hate it! Bring back the old USAToday.”
“You broke something that didn’t need fixing.”
“I don’t want comments. I want news.”
“Hey! You copied Digg! Bastards!” (figures)
The main thing I’m taking away from this is just how old and grey USAToday’s online readers must be. You can see it in all the bitching about layout width and how USAToday is suddenly “playing to the kids.”
My main objection is the load time — which sucks, thanks to all the fancy Web 2.0 effects — and the ordering of the front page stories. I’m betting USAToday will tweak both.
There’s probably a lesson here, as well, about the actual usefulness of some so-called Web 2.0 features. Taking voting, for instance. I don’t think a story which receives a lot of votes on USAToday moves up. So why are we doing it? Nor am I likely to keep a blog there, though that would please Gannett to no end. As a company, they’re preparing themselves to mobilize “citizen reporters” to do the work their paid people traditionally addressed.
While I’m all for getting close to the grassroots, being a user shouldn’t mean being used. Welcome to the collaborative world, but for-profit companies don’t necessarily deserve my participation. Old Media can’t wave the Web 2.0 banner and expect us to come and save their top-line expenses.
I wish USAToday luck. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:46 pm | Permalink
[...] Bonus link: Tony Hung thinks USA Today may be getting a little ahead of most non-techno-elitists with its socialification features. I will agree that the last people they should listen to are people like me who will complain about the features they didn’t include. However, I think USA Today should do everything they can to be out in front. For good or bad, they have influenced the newspaper industry — and mainstream newspaper readers — for the past 30 years, in terms of what the experience of presenting and reading a newspaper should be. I’m impressed they are trying to get out in front of the pack online, as well. Sidenote: their owner has some local newspapers that are laggards in the whole conversational media thing. [...]
March 4th, 2007 at 8:13 pm | Permalink
[...] Micro Persuasion, CenterNetworks, Trends in the Living Networks, WebMetricsGuru and Rex Hammock’s weblog , Deep Jive Interests, unstruc chitchatting ,Joe Duck, The Bivings Report, Stowe Boyd / Message, hubbub, Paul Kedrosky, Guardian Unlimited , Colin’s Corner and possibly a bunch more than I don’t know about…. [...]
March 4th, 2007 at 8:29 pm | Permalink
I don’t know what your definition of “a dramatic nose dive” is buddy, but I would look at the graph you linked to again. Also, try looking at this:
http://www.alexaholic.com/netscape.com+digg.com?y=p&r=1y&z=3
Interestingly enough, since Netscape.com implemented the social features, “Digg” is the one that has (first gone up but then) taken “a dramatic nose dive”.
Of course correlation doesn’t imply causation, but go figure.
March 4th, 2007 at 8:46 pm | Permalink
Muhammad — you’re right. I changed the post so that it doesn’t say “taken a dramatic nose dive”, but “continued to nose dive”
http://www.alexaholic.com/netscape.com+digg.com?y=p&r=4y&z=3
– Netscape’s decline started many months (years?) earlier than Netscape’s transition to a social news site.
I’ll still stand by my assertion that there is a population of users that were turned off by the transition, however, and that effect is as likely to occur — or, more so — with USAToday’s changes.
Cheers
t
March 4th, 2007 at 9:01 pm | Permalink
I don’t think the new social elements will have much of an effect on existing users. Most people probably won’t even use them, they will just be casual browsers.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:20 pm | Permalink
Great blog post Tony. I addressed this same issue in my blog. http://0nestop.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/reader-backlash-at-usatodaycom/
It seems USA Today is trying to be too trendy without actually catering to the needs and wants of its readership. It could work out ala Facebook’s feeds but if not they risk alienating an already shaky user base.
March 4th, 2007 at 9:27 pm | Permalink
[...] Paul’s concerns aside (and Tony Hung notes that Netscape experienced the same thing), I think getting more social with readers is something newspapers have to do, if they want to have a chance of avoiding the inevitable decline that legendary investor and gazillionaire Warren Buffett referred to in his recent remarks. But do readers want to socialize with their newspaper, or with the journalists who work there? [...]
March 4th, 2007 at 11:15 pm | Permalink
Chris (Baskind),
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
I’m not sure if the readers comments are indicative of how old or grey they are — some relative young people who use the net just aren’t as savvy, or even care about such features. And I would suggest that a great deal of readers fall into the latter category (although they are not mutually exclusive).
Mat Ingram replies back to me on his own blog about numbers, traffic and ad revenue — he says they’re up since the Globe and Mail (A national newspaper in Canada) instituted social features. The G&B is closer to the NYT, however, so one wonders if their demographics are different.
Cheers
t
March 5th, 2007 at 8:52 am | Permalink
[...] Paul’s concerns aside (and Tony Hung notes that Netscape experienced the same thing), I think getting more social with readers is something newspapers have to do, if they want to have a chance of avoiding the inevitable decline that legendary investor and gazillionaire Warren Buffett referred to in his recent remarks. But do readers want to socialize with their newspaper, or with the journalists who work there? [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 10:37 am | Permalink
[...] As with most things, I think the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. Tech/media bloggers do tend to overestimate the demand for “social” everything among the masses of mainstream users, while many media companies have indeed been slow to take even obvious steps like allowing every item of content to accept comments. [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 7:55 pm | Permalink
[...] USA Today took a bold leap across the proverbial Social Media chasm today with the launch of their redesigned Web site. (Letter To Our Readers, New Features Explained) Opinions are mixed with more negative than positive reactions - Don Doge points out that most readers don’t like it, Steve Rubel says it does not go far enough, Tony Hung comments that their audience may not not ready for the technology. [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 10:10 pm | Permalink
[...] That newspapers have to change is obvious. Don’t belive that staying as you are is going to help you in any way. I’d even say that the Economist’s perspective, to call the current downtrend of printmedia “A cause fopr concern but not for panic” a misconception. You don’t need to be a tech prodigy or visionary to understand that newspapers need the web: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation, talking to itself.” said Arthur Miller back in 1961. What you think is the appropriate technology for that conversation nowadays? [...]
March 6th, 2007 at 5:05 am | Permalink
[...] est-ce que les dispositifs 2.0 sont compréhensibles (et attendus) aujourd’hui par une portion suffisante du grand public? (voir à ce propos) [...]
March 6th, 2007 at 12:40 pm | Permalink
[...] Visdrīzāk, ka ne viens, ne otrs. The Globe and Mail žurnālists Metjū Ingrems norāda, ka līdzīga bija arī lasītāju reakcija uz jauno The Globe and Mail lapas versiju, un atgādināja par sašutuma vētru, kas pavadīja jauno Netscape dizainu; Dons Dodžs norāda uz nepieciešamību rūpīgāk testēt jaunus risinājumus un aktīvāk komunikēt ar lietotājiem, kā arī aicina neieviest vienlaikus gan jaunu lietotāja saskarni, gan jaunu funkcionalitāti. Taču ir arī skeptiķi, kas ir aizdomājušies - bet varbūt sociālo mediju revolūcija ir tikai mūsu iztēles auglis? Ja 92% auditorijas ir neapmierināti ar revolucionārajām izmaiņām, tad kam gan ir taisnība - auditorijai vai revolucionāriem (tā vaicā Skots Karps). Varbūt mēs, tehnogīki, gluži vienkārši pārvērtējam vidējo aritmētisko lasītāju? Arī Tonijs Hangs spriež (piesaucot to pašu Netscape piemēru) - varbūt publika vēl nav gatava, varbūt USA Today nāk gadus piecus par agru? Bet varbūt vairums cilvēku pavisam vienkārši nevēlas mainīt savus informācijas uzņemšanas paradumus un mēs ar visu savu sociālo mediju revolūciju varam iet ieskrieties? [...]
March 6th, 2007 at 4:19 pm | Permalink
[...] Are USA Today’s Changes About 5 Years Too Early? (Deep Jive Interests) [...]
September 15th, 2007 at 12:08 pm | Permalink
[...] I really hope this succeeds and boosts the traffic to USAToday.com. This could be a way forward for newspapers that are being squeezed by a scary future. They certainly earn credit for giving it a try rather than sitting still and waiting to be pushed. Even if it might be an idea ahead of its time. [...]
January 31st, 2008 at 2:45 am | Permalink
[...] newspapers have to change is obvious. Don’t belive that staying as you are is going to help you in any [...]