Newspapers should become carnival barkers on their Google-linked pages

May 26, 2009 By 5 Comments

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has tauntingly suggested that newspapers could keep their stories out of the search engine’s omnivorous maw by the simple expedient of inserting a line of anti-spidering robot text. But newspapers don’t have to commit hara-kiri to keep others from making a free lunch (and breakfast, dinner and snacks) out of their expensively produced content.

Yet so far they haven’t been creative enough to exploit the potential of having their stories turning up as links on the heavily-trafficked Google News homepage. In her recent testimony [PDF] at a Senate committee hearing on “The Future of Journalism,” Google Vice President for User Experience Marissa Mayer gave a virtual tutorial on how newspapers could do that.

She said:

“Publishers should not discount the simple and effective navigational elements the Web can offer. When a reader finishes an article online, it is the publication’s responsibility to answer the reader who asks, ‘What should I do next?’ Click on a related article or advertisement? Post a comment? Read earlier stories on the topic? Much like Amazon.com suggests related products and YouTube makes it easy to play another video, publications should provide obvious and engaging next steps for users. Today, there are still many publications that don’t fully take advantage of the numerous tools that keep their readers engaged and on their site.”

A browsing of Google News proves Mayer’s case conclusively. On May 20, the Google News homepage promoted news of California voters’ rejection of measures to close the $21 billion deficit in the state budget.

One of the links included a Los Angeles Times analysis. But the link leads to a page that gave searchers no reason to stay around and look at what else the smart and sprightly LAT website offers. With a little bit of code added to the linked page, the Times could have embedded an example or two of what has made the site so popular since ex-International Herald Tribune Web editor Meredith Artley took over as executive editor in 2007 – like this multimedia feature that was promoted from the Times homepage:

I’m sure “the return of distressed denim jeans” come-on, with a swatch of distressed denim, if it had been also promoted on the linked page would have prompted a lot of searchers to click on it, and – who knows? – maybe browse more LAT web pages. Some of those browsers would surely end up bookmarking the Times, putting them in the highly desirable category – especially for advertisers – of frequently returning visitors.

Every day, there are numerous other examples of newspapers not exploiting the links they get on Google, and thereby failing to convert the fast-clicking Web searcher into a leisurely, frequently returning browser of their sites.

To be blunt, what newspapers have to do is emulate the marketing savvy of the carnival. When you came to the freak show, you were greeted by spectacularly clothed, fast-talking barker. Standing next to the barker was the “bearded lady” or “wild man of Borneo” or some other bizarre creature – a tantalizing sampling of what was insidethe tent. Buy a ticket for 50 cents, and you could satisfy your socially incorrect curiosity.

Newspaper barkers would have an easier job than the carnival barker. They don’t have to sell tickets. But they do have to do a better job of selling their content.

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Making media social: news as user experience

May 13, 2009 By 4 Comments

I live in Austin, Texas, and teach at Texas State University, a short drive down I-35 in San Marcos. One thing I look forward to every year with great anticipation is the annual South By Southwest conference that happens in mid-March. Many are aware of the gigantic music festival associated with this event, but a smaller group of tech and media aficionados know about the fantastic Interactive gathering that occurs just before the musicians come to town. It is, by far, the most important event my students and I attend each year. Emerging topics at SXSW quickly become the “next big thing” within a few years. While attending SXSWi this year, an emerging theme that I noticed was that of User Experience (UX). At least one panel had UX in it’s title, and it was a common topic in many of the sessions and overheard in various hallway conversations. Where “content is king” was once the mantra of online publishing platforms, it now seems to have been replaced by “UX is king.” I have shared this observation with many people, and am often met with an initial look of puzzlement followed by the question, “What do you mean by that?” It’s a tough concept for people to grasp, particularly journalists, who traditionally have had control over every aspect of newspaper consumption, other than actually turning pages for readers. Others have a general understanding of user experience in regard to usability and accessibility standards in terms of making a website that has proper functionality, design and navigation that can be accessed by a wide range of users, including those with disabilities.

But, more and more frequently, when UX is discussed, it is about what users can do online. The social networking sites, like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, have seen to that. These online tools, in most cases originated to facilitate interpersonal communication, are increasingly being co-opted by news organizations so that they too can provide a meaningful experience to their users. The concept of news itself is being redefined as “hyperlocal” when news is as much about what your friends are doing right now as it is about the latest national and international story. And increasingly, breaking news is more quickly disseminated on these online platforms than in their traditional media counterparts (e.g. several examples using Twitter include images from the Hudson River plane crash and early information about the China earthquake). With the increasing usage and reliance on mobile platforms, such as the iPhone, users expect their news to be delivered anywhere, on demand and with special applications (such as iPhone apps), and often expect to be involved in the process via contribution and engagement. News outlets are competing for the attention of consumers with a broad range of professional and amateur communicators, and some are trying innovative ways to engage the modern news consumer. Through these interactions, users are gaining an expectation of participation, regardless of their location or platform of access.

And, while users don’t necessarily seek monetary compensation for their participation (they seem to derive other forms of social capital from the experience), it is unlikely that they will be willing to pay for content that they are helping to create and publish. Combine this with consumers being accustomed to getting news for free and for having many free alternatives to traditional media content, and the chances of ever being able to charge for the majority of online content (either through subscriptions or micro-payments) become close to nil. So, how are news organizations supposed to build a business model around an increasingly interactive online experience?

First, it may be helpful to understand what the user experience might look like for a news site. Some news organizations are beginning to understand their role beyond that of content provider to that of architect of user experience. One of the best examples to date is the way in which The New York Times is engaging audiences with their data-driven interactives and WordTrain phrase presentations, delivering news as a two-way experience. One of my favorites, although it has been around for quite some time, is their Rent vs. Buy interactive graphic, that offers the user a completely customizable experience in understanding the factors involved in the decision to rent or buy a home. We talk about this in my classes and discuss how a traditional story about renting versus buying would be written: interview a few people about their decision process, get some anecdotes, talk to a few experts. But, the individual reader would be left to factor their own variables and make a decision. The New York Times interactive provides a tool that helps the user customize their own version of the story, modifying variables and making assumptions relevant to their personal situation.

The New York Times is also an innovator in a form of crowdsourcing a story via their WordTrain feature. On election night, users were asked to submit one word that described how they felt. The only other piece of data that was collected was their party affiliation. Then the story of the night unfolded as users were able to watch the most prominent terms march across the screen in a visualization. Another popular WordTrain asked users about their feelings regarding the economy and their employment status. The data requirement, and thus the users’ participation, are minimal, much like the parsimony of Twitter’s 140-character limit. But the result is an astounding look at the pulse of an audience’s sentiment.

The New York Times recently unveiled Times Wire, a Twitter-like feed that pushes short summaries and links to articles based on user preferences, and Times Reader 2.0, a desktop application that downloads stories and presents in columnar format. The Times is also experimenting with different mobile formats including iPhone applications and is one of three newspapers that are in partnership with Amazon to subsidize the price of the Kindle e-book reader.

The term “hyperlocal” also relates to the user experience as news becomes redefined as anything that is of local interest. Our idea of news now includes what our family and friends are doing, along with interesting links, as well as local, national and international stories. Everyblock.com is a project created by former Washington Post journalist/developer Adrian Holovaty and funded by the Knight News Challenge that allows users to engage with and contribute to hyperlocal information based on their exact location. News becomes items like restaurant reviews and sanitation ratings, neighborhood events, local crime statistics and blog commentary. And, Everyblock.com has recently announced an iPhone app that makes the hyperlocal experience position-specific, engaging GPS to make the information relative to the user’s exact location.

Other features that are influencing news engagement are Digg-type popularity ratings and blog comments that allow users more input into how stories are presented. And, many news organizations are going off their platform and engaging tools like Twitter to present news and information in a way that is personal and timely. The Austin American-Statesman‘s Twitter account (@statesman) is much more than a simple RSS feed of stories. The main proprietor of the account, Robert Quigley, uses it to promote stories, break news, get feedback and reply to users, often in a way that promotes a personal side to the publication. This activity takes place outside of the newspapers’ main online presence. But, Twitter offers a variety of ways to repurpose it’s platform, by embedding RSS feeds or widgets of streams or by using the search tool to search tweets for trending topics and real-time sentiment.

These are just a few ways in which news organizations are experimenting with new presentations of information and ways to engage users. It is still too early to tell which, if any of these innovations will be successful or long term, but these directions are certainly hopeful signs that journalism can and will have a continuing valuable role in society.

So, as more news organizations begin to understand their role as user-experience creator, what questions can be asked that could facilitate an understanding of potential business models for the future? Here are a few:

  • What expertise is your organization gaining with these new roles? A few things that come to mind that could be developed into business models include creating interactive Web experiences for clients, providing access to data (although privacy concerns would need to be addressed) and managing live, interactive video streams.
  • How can information be repurposed on an ongoing basis? The ability to search, filter and provide meaningful, topic-based archives can continue to drive visitors over time. Consider how content can be aggregated much like the History of Las Vegas project at the Las Vegas Sun.
  • What niches can be tapped that can drive subscriptions or higher ad rates? Can your organization create communities around sports, parenting, local events or issues.
  • How can you measure the success of interactive environments? Eric Ulken recently wrote an excellent post on this topic (“Measuring User Engagement: Lessons from BusinessWeek,” April 16, 2009). In it, he details a number of internal (comments posted, return commenters, times e-mailed time spent on page) and external (tweets/retweets, Diggs, Delicious saves, inbound links from blogs) metrics employed by Business Week. Too often, metrics take the form of hits or pageviews, but that connotes a mass-media mentality and is restrictive in its relevance. It will be important to understand what people are doing with your content and on your platform and how that translates to influence and ultimately profit? But, it may be a two-step model with long-term benefits. Different metrics may be applicable to measuring different activities for achieving a wide range of goals.

There is no one model, like the subscription/ad-based model of the past. There are no easy answers. But, there are models that can provide inspiration in moving forward. In an article in Wired early last year and in his upcoming book Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired>, outlined several models of free distribution. These models aren’t new and don’t mean that everything is free to everyone. But they do represent the potential for providing some content free of charge in an environment where distribution and hosting costs are approaching zero. News organizations need to look for ways that they can charge a small percentage of their audience that will support the efforts of the entire organization; they need to justify the value of a well-placed ad in a hyperlocal, niche-driven platform; they need to explore relationships with partners that can use their audience as a platform for selling physical goods and services; and they need to understand the value of non-monetary compensation, in engaging in labor exchange or using their platform to promote brand awareness, reputation and community.

And finally, news organizations need to understand that an active user is a desirable user and can create significant value for the organization, as described by Henry Jenkins in his 2006 book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Create an experience that people are passionate about and sell that to advertisers by emphasizing the association with the good feelings of the interaction, like Coca-Cola’s presence on American Idol. The value is more than just exposure. It is in the way that a user feels about a community in which he actively participates and how that feeling can be transferred to a sponsor. Concert promoters and beer companies figured this out a long time ago. Associating your product with a popular musician, a live experience in which people are passionate, has value and ultimately drives sales.

Since I live in Austin, known in many circles as the live music capital, I talk to a lot of musicians about using social media. They are dealing with the same issues as journalism, an old revenue model that no longer works and an unclear understanding of new models and platforms. I keep repeating that it’s all about engaging your fan base and creating a community around your music. Everything else will flow from that. It’s not easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But if you are committed to what you do and are open to innovation, there is much more to be optimistic about than pessimistic, and there are opportunities for more rather than fewer in engaging new models. I offer these suggestions as a starting point for media companies to begin the hard work of soul searching to figure out exactly what they do and to identify their value and unique competencies. I realize that none of this is exactly earth-shaking nor entirely new. But, I hope it provides a context for considering the role that innovation and creativity have in the future of journalism. Find inspiration in others outside your immediate purview, those in other industries or endeavors. Look to innovative startups and labors of love. Read publications like Wired that address the culture of technology. And, attend South By Southwest.

I am not directly affiliated in any way with the South By Southwest conference. I have attended for the past several years, and this year, my Advanced Online Media course provided comprehensive coverage of the event at sxtxstate.com.

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Taking a ride with carousels

February 4, 2009 By 6 Comments

Are rotating displays of Web content an effective way to promote news stories? This is the second in a series of articles about findings from the studies conducted for the member of the DiSEL’s Eyetracking Research Consortium.

One challenge that faces all of us who have a wealth of content on our Web sites is how to best promote it. Unlike a print magazine or newspaper there is no big stack of paper to provide a clear physical indicator that there is much to read and experience beyond the front page.

Although we can debate the effectiveness of using a Web site’s front page when it comes to promoting content1, our industry is trying a variety of methods to tackle this challenge. One method is the “carousel” – or a rotating display of a site’s content that appears in a dominant spot on the front of the page.

You can see a variety of carousel styles on sites such as MarthaStewart.com, aol.com, msn.com and even the newly redesigned whitehouse.gov. This past October, the Yahoo! Developer network launched the “carousel control” in their user interface library. They describe it as a widget that provides a means for “browsing among a set of like objects arrayed vertically or horizontally in an overloaded page region.”

So, the obvious question from the DiSEL research consortium was: Do carousels work on news sites?  Also, is there is a preferred design style that is most effective? With the help of page prototypes created by USAToday.com2 we put some carousels to the test. Here’s an overview of some of our findings.

What we did

In July of 2008 we tested 54 people with a mean age of 31. About three-fourths of the participants were women and one-fourth were men. Most had some college education.

This study was conducted in conjunction with two others that explored the ideal number of links and images on home pages. (More on these studies in future columns.) Test subjects were solicited via Craigslist, local newspaper sites and blogs. Each participant was given a $20 Target gift card for participating. The entire test took about 40 minutes per participant.

The third test conducted was the carousel test. Users were directed to one of three home pages and asked to “browse the site as you normally would” and to “tell the experimenter when you have seen what you would like of the site.”  If test subjects browsed beyond five minutes, they were asked to stop.

While users browsed the site, we tracked their eye movements using the Tobii eyetracker.  

After the browse time, users completed a questionnaire that assessed their thoughts about the site’s effectiveness and collected demographic information.

Here are the three different home pages viewed, with links to the actual test sites.

Arrow version (Link to test site)

This site’s home page contains an automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories by clicking on navigational arrows in the upper right of the carousel element. Seventeen of the 54 people tested saw this version of the carousel.

Dot version (Link to test site)

This site’s home page contains an automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories by clicking on navigational dots in the upper left of the carousel element. Nineteen of the 54 people tested saw this version of the carousel.

Thumbnail version (Link to test site)

This site’s home page contains an automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories by clicking on thumbnail images to the left of the main image in the carousel element. Eighteen of the 54 people tested saw this version of the carousel.

What we found

To make these results useful to those thinking about carousel use as a promotional tool, we examined the users’ eyetracking and also asked them survey questions to provide us with some of their overall impressions.

Survey says….

As the chart below indicates, we found that the type of carousel used did not seem affect how engaging users found the home page. Interestingly, though, we did see that users who viewed the home page with the Thumbnail version of the carousel, felt more strongly that the Web site was easier to navigate.

Those viewing the Arrows version also had a stronger desire for more stories on the home page. This could be due to the fact that the arrows navigation did not clearly indicated the number of stories available in the carousel.

Another result worth noting is that users viewing the Thumbnail version of the carousel seemed to indicate more than the other two groups that the overall site was easy to navigate.

All three groups were fairly neutral when it came determining which stories were most important.   The carousel style did not seem to provide them with a clear indication of story hierarchy.

In light of that, we also wanted to know how did users would respond to this question:  What was the headline for the main news story on the site?

As the chart above indicates, is seems that users who viewed the Arrow version of the carousel were more apt to say the first story appearing in the carousel was the “main” story. Those with the other two versions were more apt to say that it either all or some of the stories that appeared in the carousel element.

All these survey results – while purely observational – may suggest that editors ask themselves what their goals are with one type of carousel-style presentation over another. Obvious navigation – such as thumbnails – seems to encourage users to view the site navigation as easy. It also may be an indicator to users that all stories within the carousel are of equal importance.

But, this is what users SAID. Let’s take a look at the hotspots to see what they DID.

 Eyetracking shows…

Eyetracking offers researchers valuable information about where users actually look on a site. It is accomplished by calibrating a user’s pupils with a small camera hidden in the base of the computer monitor. Calibration takes only a few seconds, but the tracking results allow researchers to know where users’ eyes went within a centimeter of accuracy. (For more on how eyetracking works, click here.)

We can get a variety of data forms from eyetracking. An aggregate view of what viewers saw is displayed in a “hotspot” or “heatmap” of the Web page studied. The chart to the left details how to read this data.

We generated hotspots for users’ fixations on each version of the carousel. Here are hotspots from the top portions of the page, which seemed to show us the most interesting data about the pages. See the actual hotspots from the pages below.

Past results ring true

As eyetracking researchers, we always will spend some time observing what trends are similar to results we found in past studies. In this case, we found two things worth mentioning:

  • The areas of the photos that got the most fixations were faces.
  • Top navigation gets the most use.

    Past studies have shown that faces in photos are the areas where eyes tend to fixate. From observation during this study (and the heatmaps below) you can see that this is true again. No matter what carousel navigation style was used – and regardless of the size of the photo or the size of the person in the photo – users tended to look for and find that human element to relate to. (Stay tuned: In a future column, we will go results of a study conducted with prototype pages from the DesMoinesRegister.com that experimented with size and quantity of images on a home page.)

    We also saw that the carousels that employed top navigation elements (Arrows version and Dots version) got more clicks than the Thumbnail version. Other factors (discussed below) contributed to this observation, but it is interesting we consistently find users viewing and using navigation more if it runs along the top of a page or page element.

    Attention to change

    One clear observation is that the Dots version had a higher percentage of user fixations on all elements on the top part of the page than the other two versions (Arrows and Thumbnails).

    Why? Well, one clear difference here is that the navigational dots changed color when story changed. The change had high color contrast as well – from a blue dot to a white dot. The moving dots seemed to draw attention to the page overall.

    The Arrows version had no visible change in when stories changed in the carousel. In the Thumbnail version the box around the image changed when the story changed, but the movement and the change in color contrast was not as marked or clear as the dot changes.

    So it seems that the moving navigational dots in the Dots version encouraged a higher percentage of users to view all aspects of the top portion of the page. For example, only about half of the users looked at the page headlines on the arrows and thumbnail pages, but closer to 70 percent looked at this list when the dot navigation existed.

    Interestingly, though, even though there was a higher percentage of eyes on the headlines in the Dots version, there were less total clicks in this area of the page than on the other two. In addition there were more “dead” areas – or areas with zero eye fixations – on the tops of the pages with the Arrows version and the Thumbnail version than on the page with the Dots version.

    The type of carousel used did not seem to affect the number of clicks on the carousel photo and the corresponding headline and blurb.

    These observations seem to suggest that if you are going to use a carousel element it may be best to place navigational elements above the display elements and to utilize a navigational design that clearly indicates the change from one story to the next.

    But – what do you think?  Below are the hotspots from each carousel version. We look forward to your thoughts and comments about what you see – and why.   Post your questions here. We’ll respond.

    Arrows version 

    Automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories with navigational arrows in the upper right of the carousel element.

    Dots version

    Automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories with navigational dots in the upper left of the carousel element.

    Thumbnails version

    Automatically changing carousel that allows the user to control the rotation of the stories with the use of thumbnail images to the left of the main image in the carousel element.

    1 Some news sites editors have mentioned “off-the-record” that less than 20 percent of their story traffic comes from people linking to pieces from the home page. The rest comes from blog posts, Google searches, Delicious links and other forms of online promotion.

    2 Many thanks to DiSEL Research Consortium members Josh Hatch and Kristin Novak at USAToday.com for creating the testing materials. Also, thanks to UNC-CH Ph.D. candidate Bart Wojdynski for his assistance with designing this study and running test subjects.

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