NewsCloud's Community Starter Blog

Value of Pages for Businesses and Like Buttons Diminished in New Facebook Design

Interesting comments in the Puget Sound Business Journal - this is sort of what Facebook did to application developers with notifications ... which is one of the reasons we're moving NewsCloud away from native canvas applications and moving towards using Facebook as just another authentication provider:

Before, when a user clicked the “like” or “recommend” buttons on a business’s page, anyone viewing that user’s news feed would see that the user likes that business or product. Same with comments posted to a business page. But Eckert says those aren't showing up in personal feeds anymore when clicked through Facebook, though they do appear in feeds when clicked through the businesses’ website.

“The ‘like’ button is being marginalized,” says Dave Ringler, Blind Acre’s director of marketing and product development. “How are businesses going to stay in front of their followers’ friends?”

It also means businesses will have to give more consideration to how they use “like” buttons on their websites.

 

Creepy - Public Events You've Attended Now Easily Browsable on Facebook Timeline

I've been playing with the Facebook Timeline today. It's quite cool for keeping a personal journal of what I'm up to and not really something I'd prefer other people be able to easily browse. One of the things I found particular creepy is the way it aggregates all public events that you've attended on your Timeline. In other words, it's quite easy for someone to look at your timeline and browse to see a summary of all the public events you've ever attended. While this information was publicly visible on individual events, Timeline now lets anyone see ALL the public events I've ever attended.

In order to shield this information, I went and removed myself from every public event I've attended and will not be RSVPing to any more public Facebook events.

The Timeline goes live for people around October 1st - so be aware (though you will get a chance to opt in before it turns on). Developers can get a preview now. You can learn more here.

The Missteps of the Wall Street Journal's Social Facebook Application

Full disclosure: NewsCloud's free, open source software runs Facebook applications for communities and news sites and as such is a competitive offering to Social WSJ.

    I watched Social WSJ's launch with interest but feel strongly that they've made a number of obvious mistakes with regard to working with Facebook and the nature of how their application works. Over the past three years, I've worked with a number of mainstream news organizations trying to get them to implement effective Facebook integrated solutions. You can read my post-mortem at Nieman Labs as well as results from our grant-funded research. While our news partners have struggled because they fail to link and promote their Facebook-community sites from their main web site, the Wall Street Journal's application strays in common ways that we regularly advise partners against.

    Rule #1 is don't try to duplicate your web site content in Facebook. Mainstream news organizations already have great websites - so there simply is no need to try to replicate this experience inside of Facebook. In a sense, all you're doing is giving Facebook space to monetize your content with their ads. Essentially, Social WSJ just tries to present WSJ content inside Facebook's application frame.

    Rule #1a is if you do try to duplicate your web site content in Facebook, don't make it ugly and unattractive. I'd argue that Social WSJ is extremely less attractive than the site's existing home page.

    Another mistake Social WSJ makes is requiring readers to register up front. The first thing readers see when they visit http://social.wsj.com is the intimidating Facebook permissions popup. NewsCloud-powered sites allow passive reading without registration. So, readers can visit, browse, read and only need to register if they get excited about what they see and want to participate. In our climate change community site with Grist, University of Minnesota researchers concluded that applications that offer a variety of levels for users to get involved do better over time (research pdf). This is called a ladder of engagement which gives readers a chance to engage lightly at first, then more over time.

    There's really nothing at Social.WSJ.com that readers can't get at the Wall Street Journal's home page. And, it's certainly not visually appealing enough to make Facebook users deviate from their news feeds to regularly visit. 

    We evangelize to news organizations that the value of social media is in creating sites that connect the audience to each other in new ways - ways that they often don't have the technical capacity to do with their existing web sites. So, NewsCloud sites are designed to feature community features that allow for user generated content, sharing and discussion - you could call it "moving beyond comments".

    NewsCloud Facebook communities let users do things they can't do on existing news sites e.g. crowdsourced idea gathering, discussion forums, blogging, sharing local photo and videos, adding resources to directories of popular restaurants or city guides. We even have a predictions game that lets readers guess at future news events and a lending library that lets them share extra household items with their friends. Furthermore, because we authenticate users with their Facebook accounts, their real identity and accountability make NewsCloud communities more civil than the typical news web site. You can see examples of this in action at our prototype site in Seattle, The Needle, or from our Web site.

    We just don't see what Social WSJ accomplishes other than to help Facebook earn revenue from the Wall Street Journal's content - and that's if anyone wants to use it.

    Taking advantage of Facebook requires that news organizations think in new ways and provide truly unique and innovative offerings. This often requires embracing the idea that readers will find it exciting to share content and engage in conversation with each other. We think it means hosting a space especially for community - and leveraging social networks like Facebook and Twitter in the ways that are most effective. Often, this just means applying these services for authenticated identity and friend connections. It means that news executives and editors need to be open to the possibility that there are new revenue streams available to those who delve into the world of community. In some ways, it means stepping back into the world of Craigs List and moving beyond pre-social-media text-only town halls.

    This is why the Knight Foundation funds NewsCloud to provide these kinds of technology solutions free, open source and easily adoptable for news organizations to take and use to their advantage.

    Most importantly, news organizations need to promote their community sites from their web sites and other outreach (e.g. email, TV, radio, marketing). Otherwise, there's no point to investing in these new approaches.

    Psst...Rupert, we'd be glad to set your team on a path to social media success... However, if you want to stick with your existing editorial focus of wrecking American society, then you should probably find another software consulting firm to run our open source software.

    Update: A reader email asked if NewsCloud has a political bias in its work. Let me clarify. As part of our grant work, NewsCloud's software is available freely as open source software - anyone of any political stripe can download and use it. We also operate a support site at http://support.newscloud.com ... we answer all queries there that we can regardless of who they are from. However, if Rupert Murdoch approached us and wanted to hire us as consultants to help him with NewsCloud, we'd probably encourage him to find another software consultant. The issue isn't right wing or left wing - the issue is the lack of intellectual integrity and commitment to fact inherent in Murdoch-run organizations. I take the practice of journalism quite seriously - and I believe that integrity and honest presentation of facts are hugely important qualities. I would be letting the Knight Foundation down if I began working with organizations that don't practice journalism with commitment to truth telling.

 

 

 

NewsCloud Presentation in Saint Petersburg, Russia - Hosted by iUni.ru

Some fun photos from our lecture in Saint Petersburg, Russia put on by our friends at iUni.ru. NewsCloud founder, Jeff Reifman, presented. Topics included NewsCloud, the Knight Foundation and entrepreneurialism. Great audience, great questions and we hope we didn't disappoint. Translation generously provided by Dinara Asadulina. Slides. View the entire album. Video coming soon.

 

Using Twitter to Launch Your News Community Application on Facebook

    When I was a child, I used to love Sea Monkeys. You'd just add the magic powder to a bowl of water and the next day you'd have tiny little baby sea monkeys swimming around. Starting up a social media news community in Facebook has always been harder, until now.

    Beginning today, you can take NewsCloud's free, open source Facebook application platform and create a community site with news content from Twitter.

    There are two big challenges to creating a community news startup. 1) Aggregating relevant, timely news content for your site and 2) Promoting and marketing your site. NewsCloud's new Twitter integration address the first challenge.

How It Works

    You choose a topic for your NewsCloud Facebook application. e.g. Seattle or Baseball. Then, you create a Twitter List with Twitter users you believe do a good job of focusing on this topic area. When you set up your NewsCloud site, you can tell it to populate content automatically from this Twitter List. NewsCloud will appropriately filter tweets from news related sites (you can white list and black list sites to further control for relevance) and publish these to your site with links back to the Twitter users that posted the content in the first place.

    You can see an example of this at The Needle, using our example Twitter list for Seattle. Your NewsCloud site will pull in content from Twitter users you choose and select stories that come from relevant news sites. You can create your own Twitter List, curating your favorite twitterers for your site topic or region. Or, you can use someone else's existing Twitter List. It's about as simple as growing sea monkeys.

    We'd love to see you set up your own topical or hyperlocal community using our free, open source Facebook technology and give us feedback on this new feature. To be successful, you'll still need to promote your community actively, but this is a great way to leverage Twitter to seed your community with interesting and relevant stories from day one.

    While NewsCloud also can automatically add stories from RSS feeds, we feel that using Twitter lists with members you curate is more effective at finding higher quality content. RSS feeds tend to firehose too many stories and are less personal. Also, the presentation of Twitter content on your community site highlights the personalities and profile pictures of each Twitter user. Whereas, RSS feeds are posted by a single user account.

    This is a very early release of this feature. We're curious what you think about it. Please share your feedback on our discussion page.

 

Saint Petersburg iUni Presentation

Update: Photos available here.

Thank you for the excellent turnout tonight. Here are the presentation slides:

India News Site is Latest to Use NewsCloud

Check out Indiali.com (on Facebook as an app here), the latest Facebook application powered by NewsCloud's free, open source software. The Indiali news community began as a Facebook page and has grown to have 3.3 million fans. Indiali's using NewsCloud to improve the quality of community features that they can offer.

As we've discussed before on this blog, Facebook pages are quite limited and don't offer a way for news startups to monetize their traffic.

If you want to learn more about Indiali, you can find its founder Aravind Chandreasekaran on Facebook or contact him through the application.

NewsCloud's free open source Facebook software is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation through April 2012. NewsCloud can be installed easily in minutes and hosted for less than $45 per month.

NewsCloud Presentation Slides from AEJMC 2011 in St. Louis

The slides from our presentation at AEJMC last week are below. Also, here are some of the additional links we mentioned about NewsCloud working with universities:

NewsCloud at the University of Washington in the classroom

NewsCloud in research with the University of Minnesota 

10 Things News Organizations Don't Understand About NewsCloud

During the past few years, we've partnered with a number of news organizations. Here are the 10 things they commonly misunderstand about NewsCloud. Note: #10 is actually the most important.

1) You can use NewsCloud to host a virtual town hall, fostering community and engagement between readers. Our interactive features let your audience participate in new ways. Our Facebook Connect support connects readers with their real names and faces, fostering a more civil environment. Host your community's online hub before someone else does.

2) You can use NewsCloud to enhance and expand your storytelling. Our crowdsourcing features let participants contribute to your reporting or add value after publication. Your readers want to engage beyond the comment thread, there's a lot to gain by empowering them.

3) You can use NewsCloud to run community sites for columnists or show personalities, for topics such as sports or for beat reporting or for targeting specific demographics such as young people or college communities. However, the more vertically you segment your community - the more you'll need to pay attention to #10 below. 

4) You can monetize your NewsCloud community with advertisements from your own ad services. And, you can integrate your favorite analytics/statistics engine e.g. Google Analytics or Overture in order to integrate activity from your community application into your overall web metrics. You fully own your site, not NewsCloud. So, you get to keep all the revenue. That's different than Facebook pages where Facebook gets to keep all the revenue it makes from your content. We also provide support for Outbrain and TrafficSpaces.

5. NewsCloud's software elevates your audience from reader to participant and community member. User generated content provides a new source of page views and serves as an ear to the ground for valuable story leads. Our integration with Facebook and Twitter lead to more viral sharing and helps you expand your audience.

6. NewsCloud's feature set includes unique Facebook-integrated classifieds which include a lending library for community members to share physical goods like DVDs and household items. In addition to user blogs, discussion forums and photo and video galleries, we've even got a news predictions game. Our optional email notifications keep participants engaged in the conversation.

7. Facebook pages are a great way to drive discussions off sites you own and onto Facebook. The best way to use your Facebook page is to link to activity pages on your NewsCloud application.

8. Newsroom staff need to participate in your community, helping curate content and occasionally interacting directly with readers. They should also be trained in using NewsCloud features to expand their storytelling. While high levels of marketing can seed a community without participation by newsroom personalities, you'll see increased levels of loyalty and satisfaction if your team engages directly in the community. You'll also see benefits from interacting with readers publicly through the community which aren't as easy to do through traditional website comment threads and personal off-site emails.

9. NewsCloud is available for free as open source software. It's funded by the Knight Foundation through April 2012. It can be installed in just a few steps by most software developers. You can also contact NewsCloud to manage it for you.

10. Promotion Promotion Promotion. The most important thing to know is that you absolutely must actively promote your NewsCloud site from your website if you want your community to grow. You'll need prominent navigational links to your NewsCloud site and features. You'll also need to regularly showcase headlines and features from your NewsCloud site on the front page of your web site. It's best if your NewsCloud site is included in all of your outreach e.g. print, email, web, etc. This is especially important at the beginning when you are seeding your community ... but this is always a best practice. While you may initially hesitate directing traffic from your primary web site to your NewsCloud community site, over time you will see a net increase in page views and activity. And, remember, you fully own your new community site and will realize all the financial rewards from its growth.

How Alternative Weeklies Can Use NewsCloud to Build Facebook Connected Communities

Update: Presentation slides from AAN2011 in New Orleans are available here: NewsCloud AAN 2011 Slides

NewsCloud is a free, open source platform for building Facebook Connect community applications and web sites.

There are primarily two ways we recommend alternative weeklies use NewsCloud:

1) Use NewsCloud to launch a virtual town hall providing a place for your readers to connect with each other. Add interactive features such as user blogs, photo and video galleries, link sharing and discussion forums to give your readers new ways to interact with each other. NewsCloud even offers a Classifieds and Lending Library which allows readers to share physical goods such as books, DVDs and household items.

NewsCloud's integration with Facebook Connect allows readers to connect with their real names and faces, greatly improving the civility of these sites. Move beyond generic Facebook pages (learn how NewsCloud differs from Facebook pages) and give your readers a community home that they can get truly excited about to share.

2) Use NewsCloud's crowdsourcing features to extend your storytelling, giving readers creative ways to get involved. Move beyond comments. Give your readers creative ways to get involved with and augment your reporting. NewsCloud offers crowdsourcing features such as idea boards, questions and answers, resource directories and even a news predictions game. Set up photo and video galleries, discussion forums and link to user blogs to extend the conversation.

Every NewsCloud feature is tightly integrated into Facebook and Twitter for viral sharing. It also integrates your statistical tracking and advertising engines to allow you to leverage these interactive page views into new sources of revenue. It's also fully optimized for search engines to draw inbound traffic.

The Knight Foundation has generously funded NewsCloud through April 2012. Already as part of this grant, we've got the installation of NewsCloud down to a few easy steps on a Rackspace server that costs less than $45/month.

Check out some of our existing prototype sites. Seattle's The Needle. Minnesota Public Radio's MinnEcon (as Facebook application). Carolyn Hax of The Washington Post (as Facebook application). The Boston Globe's Your Boston  (as Facebook application)

Hope to see you in New Orleans on Saturday. Or, contact us by email or visit our support site.