GatorGradStudent:
Survey of social community options for local newspapers
Gary Ritzenthaler
University of Florida
Introduction
- Context
- Questions
- Goals
- Criteria
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Context
Historically, newspapers have been an important central point of any community and a primary source of credible information. Over the last few decades, however, newspapers have been facing some challenges:
- use of newspapers and news services in general is declining among Americans under age 30.
- as media companies consolidate their businesses to save money, newspapers smaller markets provide less and less content of interest to local residents, less information that responds to the needs of the local community.
- as the web evolves, more and more people get their news from online sources, the trend toward 'personalized' web news services fractures the news people get from the local news sources into pieces. With each member only getting bits of the total package, the sense of the local news media as central to community information erodes.
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Personalization
- "The basic problem with personalization is that tailoring information to you limits social discovery. Users contribute value to the database only for them and the service provider, not for each other."
Ross Mayfield
- 'unbundling of news' (Gates)
- information is chopped up
- aggregate news sources (Google News effect)
- leads to decay of brand loyalty for total product
- social capital concerns
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Context
- As the public's interest in newspapers and traditional media declines, popularity of online communities and social networks has shown tremendous growth.
- creating 'blended community' can serve as an antidote to forces of personalization working against the public sense of newspapers as foundation of information in a local community.
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Questions
- What are the key elements that should be included in a social platform to be integrated with news?
- What criteria should be used in selecting a platform? Or deciding whether to create an in-house solution?
- What challenges arise in developing and growing a geographically-focused social platform?
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Questions (for the future)
- What is the best way to manage the interaction between digital and physical identities in the context of digital social networks?
- Do the interactions between individuals' digital selves change when the online community they interact in reflects the geographical community where the individual lives? If so, how?
- What can newspapers do as a center of community action to help individuals blend online and offline activities in productive ways?
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Goals
- To review the platform options available for creating a social networking service
- After the review, select a promising platform, test it, and join in the development process
- Implement and promote the platform to a test audience (grad students)
- Use the platform as a base for discussion of audience issues
- Use the platform to plan offline events for audience interest groups
- Test a few customizations that reflect current trends
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Criteria
- Free or very low cost : expensive systems could not be adopted in small towns
- Easy to maintain : small town news organizations don't have the time for extensive maintenance
- Open source : wherever possible open source systems should be used
- Easy to customize : Any system will need some customizing to address the specific needs of a news organization, so the less time these changes take, the better the platform will fit for the project.
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Selecting a platform
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Tour of AroundMe 6.9
- Main Features
- Publishing scope
- Personas
- Skills list
- Mark & Track
- Event calendar
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Updates for 7.1
- Still in development
- Now modular
- Action-driven interface changes
- Personal karma (testimonials)
- Personal space (not ready yet)
- Cards instead of personas
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Site Promotion
- work with student groups
- work with opinion leaders
- fliers and workshops
- contest
- virtual happy hour
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Unsolved problems
- Engaging users
- Interface confusion
- Better news integration (ala netvibes)
- Event-driven (geographical) integration
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Successes
- Work with Grad Student Council
- Mashups
- Chats
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General Recommendations
- Realize that it can be done.
- Work with group and opinion leaders.
- Make it simple.
- Keep the development cycle short.
- Stay aware of changes.
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Future Directions
- Move toward data sharing
- ie create custom pages for netvibes
- Single sign-on
- probably OpenID right now
- Use multiple platforms
- esp. for geographical (ie Plazes or Dodgeball)
- partner with local hotspots
- Integrate personal spaces & events online
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Research Influences : Online Community
- Kim : Community Building Patterns
- especially work on rituals
- Crumlish : Power of Many
- especially work on meetups
- effects of connected citizens organizing in physical world
- Laurel, Rheingold, others
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Research Influences : Online Citizen Journalism
- Gilmor : We the Media
- Read/write Web (Berners-Lee)
- Yelvington
- Holovaty
- Boyd
- Sociology of social networks
- Rheingold, others
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