Prominent News Sites Taking Community To A New Level - What Are Their Readers Saying??

Just as common as the old "newspaper reports 30% losses in Q3" headline is the "newspaper adds community and social networking features to its news site" these days. Most recently, both the Wall Street Journal and NPR.org, launched social platforms to kick their reader commenting and site-interactivity into gear. WSJ, not surprisingly, chose to limit the access to the community section of the site to paid subscribers, who also must present their comments and user-profile under their real names...no anonymity here. NPR implemented the Pluck SiteLife platform which indexes commenting activity and allows readers to "add friends". Also notable is NYTimes.com recent promotion of reader registration by putting a TimesPeople toolbar encouraging readers to register on every page (see screenshot below).



So in the spirit of reader comments - here's a look at the reader comments on the news of the respective launches! General enthusiasm! Some nerves about anonymity vs. using a real identity...but it looks like these sites have taken an excellent step in instilling reader loyalty - and this reader engagement will hopefully help bring online advertising into a more targeted, profitable place. What do we at Searchles think? These readers can now more easily react to and index their favorite news content but also need to be able to more effectively interact with each other. The idea behind Searchles Discovery widgets is that we surface like-minded users for you based on the content you've interacted with/commented on. These are the users you would be most likely to interact with on certain topics that apparently whip you into an online commenting frenzy. Check out what we're doing on WashingtonPost.com's growing social network. Anywho, reactions to the NPR and WSJ launches below.

NPR

Samuel Rutledge (Samuel) wrote:

I think this is great. I've always appreciated the degree to which NPR is committed to public input, and helping us to hear and understand one another (Story Corps comes to mind as a glowing example of this spirit). That said, I have genuine fear that the new social media features could be abused by small minded troglodytes to spread and foster messages of hate and intolerance in a public forum. But maybe that's the eternal risk of free speech.

Thu Oct 2 20:26:45 2008

J. Hudzin (May) wrote:

How nice. I've always been happy that NPR keeps up a publicly available website that improves access to it's material and lets me listen to Morning Edition every night. This is a sweet little bonus. I hope it works out for you, especially the part about keeping things "civil." It will probably be a lot of work removing ads, threats, obscenities, etc, but it would be great if you can actually promote polite conversation. And... what is my avatar exactly? An unhappy, naked Viking holding... something. Lol, oh well, best of luck!

Tue Sep 30 13:59:42 2008

Levy Rivers (Reputationist) wrote:

I too think this is a great tool that social networkers like me should include in their online homes. With Linkedin being about business/job searches - Myspace youthful music - Facebook relationships - there is a space wide open for those of us that want to share intellect. What better place than NPR where information is the key draw. My hope is that the space will become easier to navigate - integrate with other social network applications, but for now this works

Tue Sep 30 10:09:53 2008

Mike Nash (halemikale) wrote:

Terrific job on the new online community! I'd like to suggest you add a way to connect with other people who have selected the same local and/or favorite NPR affiliate(s) that I included during the sign-up process. I can see others who have selected the same favorite NPR programs that I have selected, but I can't see other fans of my local NPR station. Adding such a feature would be a great way to include fans of local affiliates in the new community. Thanks for building a great new on-line community opportunity.

Mon Sep 29 20:15:02 2008

WSJ (comments on the NYTimes article)

I think this is a great idea, but I find that WSJ attracts a different demographic than some of the other sites such as Slashdot, Ars Technica, TechDirt, etc.

It will be interesting to see how they implement it, and if they get the “secret sauce” of community management and privacy features to work.

Also, I think you made a great point, Vindu, this has potential to become just a big love-fest where people want to ask questions, but not answer questions for fear of reprisal at work, home, et cetera. A report came out late last week that people google, check facebook for potential employees, and even for internal promotions. How will this data be anonomized?

A simple example is this: If you work for X and went to work for a competitor, will they see any/all commentary?

I think I will hold back until I see how it works out.
— Consider The Lobster September 15, 2008 3:27 am

“New community features will allow WSJ.com’s million or so paid online subscribers to comment on every story,”

I have been sending emails to Nytimes.com on more than a few occasions asking them to consider this! I always get a form letter saying thanking me for my comments and that they were sent to the appropriate department. Of course, as all Nytimes.com readers know, nothing changed. It’s good to see another major online paper figure this out at least, and I do subscribe to wsj.com so it benefits me.
It always made sense that allowing readers to comment on every story would be a great idea. Not just comments on blog stories. At least one paper understands this.
— jeffj September 15, 2008 1:28 pm

What do you think?