21 Comments Add your own

• 1. Rex  |  June 26th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

  Liz, did you see this?

  timespeople.nytimes.com/packages/addons/timespeople/

• 2. Liz Foreman  |  June 26th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

  Thanks Mr. Sorgatz,

  I remember this being talked about…Didn’t know it launched.

  I have to switch out that screenshot, eh?????

• 3. Rick Ellis  |  June 26th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

  At my former job, I had made a couple to pitches about a somewhat similiar idea.

  The theory was to have a personalized main page for a local news site that was stripped down to some basics, but would allow users to import all sorts of feeds and info into individualized widgety boxes. There would also be some tools to easily allow users to aggregate and create their own feeds and share them.

  The result would be (for instance) a personalized home page for a newspaper site that would include stories from the paper (weighted towards zip code and interest), along with headlines from other sites, info about your son’s local baseball schedule, tomorrow’s school lunch menu, a video posted by your favorite European soccer team. Plus friend feed and whatever other social networking info you wanted.

  Sort of the ultimate local news category killer, and it’s increasingly easier to manage as the various social networking sites make their data more portable.

  I still think it’s an interesting idea, but apparently, I am alone in this enthusiasm.

• 4. tdc  |  June 26th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

  i support you.

• 5. Rob  |  June 26th, 2008 at 4:07 pm

  I pitched similar ideas to what Rick and Liz mention for our website. I like the idea of building a website that would be what the people wanted, something that would be highly customizable, user-friendly, interactive and very much catering to each individual’s interests and tastes.

  We’re powered by WorldNow instead.

• 6. Liz  |  June 26th, 2008 at 5:25 pm

  That is a pretty neat idea for time optimization, but sometimes I still like leisurely clicking through my favorite networking sites. Hmm. It would be nice to have the option, though.

• 7. Ed  |  June 26th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

  We built a very powerful system for doing just this 8 years ago.

  When we unleased it to our Local TV Group customers, it was like that scene in the Jerk when Navin’s describing what the customer could win…

  After locking down all the important stuff, like the Oprah widget and the like, the user was left with a couple square inches to personalize.

  Naw, TV’s still stuck in the “You’ll take what we force down your throat, and you’ll like it, damnit.”

• 8. Rick Ellis  |  June 26th, 2008 at 7:00 pm

  LOL! Ed. Yeah, I’ve seen that look a bit myself.

  Maybe the trick with an idea like this is get together someone with the ability to do the technology with a site in a top 30 market that is struggling.

  Sometimes, the best motivator is desperation.

• 9. TR  |  June 27th, 2008 at 12:04 am

  We’re all kinda tech-savvy here but really, do you guys know how far away the majority of the audience is from grokking that sort of thing? I think its day will come. But we’re in the trenches with our readers/participants/contributors/community members every single day and the vast majority of them are nowhere close to there. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be working on it or thinking about it, but if you have limited resources to deal with, IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CONTENT. Get somebody else gathering more of it. Unless you are going for a niche crowd of early adopters. My .01999999999.

• 10. Anonymous  |  June 27th, 2008 at 1:49 am

  If my friends have good stuff going on they should at least call or send over a box of jelly donuts…

  C’monnnnnnn! Network with me!

• 11. Liz Foreman  |  June 27th, 2008 at 7:46 am

  @Rick, Ed, TDC, Rob, someone’s bound to do this sometime soon, right? (I hope.)

  @TR, isn’t that the point? The News Feed, as it is called on Facebook, just shows up…No need to adjust things unless you want to.

  One of the troubles I have with NYT’s new product is that I had to download the plugin to get started. I know this is only the beginning of their strategy, but the fact that I have to download something automatically puts it on my “to do later” list.

  As for the content, I’m with you there. More serious news gathering, not less. Who would argue against that? But, at the same time, there’s the need to constantly improve technology because there is no final say on ideal news delivery. So, the big question - is electronic media (web) eventually going to quiet down in terms of innovation because someone has discovered the ideal news delivery methods? If so, will we still be alive to see this day?

• 12. Rick Ellis  |  June 27th, 2008 at 9:53 am

  TR, early on, I spent almost three years as a managing editor for an O&O site in medium-sized southern market. So I certainly understand about resource challenges and getting people accustomed to technology. At one point I worked for a news director who thought AIM was for college students and shut-ins.

  I think I need to write about this at length on my own blog, but here are a couple of quick thoughts.

  a) Worrying about early adopters is less an issue if you have a user interface that makes sense. Plus, this type of idea would help lock in the younger visitors that most news sites have trouble attracting.

  b) By allowing visitors to easily aggregate and organize their own info, you’re really taking advantage of other people’s work to beef up your own content. Why should a TV station or newspaper web staff spend resources collecting school info (and we all know we’ve had to do that work), when you can find residents to do it for you? This is much more helpful content than the typical forum posts and video clips that pass for UGC on most sites.

  But it’s a tough arguement to make. I’ve been going through the job search process in recent weeks, and I’m astounded at how many sites still don’t seem to have changed all that much in the past couple of years.

• 13. tdc  |  June 27th, 2008 at 10:12 am

  re: r e

  i for one wish you nothing but the best in that search.

  may you land at the job of your dreams.

  i mean that.

  good luck.

• 14. tdc  |  June 27th, 2008 at 10:22 am

  and to liz:

  thanks for including me in that distinguished group… you know i do not belong.

  heck yes someone will do this.

  i only hope it’s someone with as much drive as you.

• 15. TR  |  June 27th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

  Rick, have you really found those people to “do the work for you”? That’s my philosophical difference with the UGC craze … and I have worked on a variety of sides of the web world … currently running my own small low-tech (but revenue-generating) hyperlocal site, previously involved with web sidelines at TV station and with web-only enterprises (Disney Internet Group) … I think UGC is great when you realize that it is something that will come along sporadically and unreliably, because those “users” (hate that word, but don’t have anything better) have other priorities that may come first - so when it does come in, celebrate it, maximize it, showcase it as such, but don’t build a site or feature that will be dependent on it … know that “your” site will still ultimately rely on “you.” I also think that enhances the user experience because if you still have a gatekeeper of some sort, the quality will remain relatively high (spelling, accuracy, clarity) with at least a glancing review.

• 16. Rick Ellis  |  June 27th, 2008 at 11:35 pm

  TR….my experience has been that people won’t do the work for you. But they will do things that are in their best interests. A lot of UGC efforts work under the theory that people are driven by recognition. “Hey, my video is popular, or it was played on my local TV station.”

  While some of that’s true, it’s much more likely that someone will contribute info if it’s in their best interest. I think the trick with a site like this is to design it so it would still be robust with much UGC (at least initially). And have the tools that make the sharing seamless.

  One short example, and then I’ll shut up, I swear. Say I have a T-ball league. And the local TV site had a way for me to just enter the schedule in a few fields, and it would be both available as a widget on the TV site home page (if you wished), as well as being sharable on any other site. There are a lot of ways this info can be manipulated and aggregated. And as visitors see the uses for it, it will become more valuable and more utilized.

  There’s a discussion about Google in another thread. And the takeaway from Google is that Adsense isn’t any great technological breakthrough. But Google added two important things to the text link market. Ease of use and contextual relevance. Which is a lesson that is at the heart of this idea.

• 17. tdc  |  June 28th, 2008 at 7:10 am

  think in terms of ugc in a broader concept- it can be as simple as COMMENTS.

  the users generate them and it’s content that will draw them and others.

  it isn’t that sporadic either as many folks engage each other on nearly a daily basis.

• 18. Anonymous  |  June 28th, 2008 at 9:22 pm

  @tdc You assume it won’t be from the usual cyberpunx flaming you all the time.

• 19. tdc  |  June 29th, 2008 at 10:58 am

  maybe you assume some don’t deserve flaming… by blowtorch?

• 20. tdc  |  June 29th, 2008 at 11:30 am

  by the way- IF “usual cyberpunx” is pointed my way, it’s seems a typical pejorative response coming from someone in a crumbling ivory tower to use “anonymous” as an id.

  IF NOT, you have my sincerest apologies for assuming.

• 21. Anonymous  |  June 30th, 2008 at 5:59 am

  It’s a crumbling two-bedroom rental house., single story.

  My birthname carries no real meaning and can be confused with others already here. i hardly feel like making up another nom de plume at this time. There ARE maybe two anons here that write in a similar manner though.

  I won’t inquire what a tdc is, I’ll replv to that poster and enjoy it.

Leave a Comment

Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed