The way newspapers are changing

Posted by Evan Fell on November 16, 2007 at 10:11 AM

At AMPE, Jim Brady executive editor of washingtonpost.com and Jennifer Carroll vice president/new media content of Gannett talked about the ways in which newspapers are changing. They discussed everything from blogs to online gaming.

Brady talked about The Washington Post, explaining that they have been blogging since 2004, and now have 80 blogs. For a blog to be successful it must be built around a good personality or a good topic. Blogs can be a lot of work but can also attract a loyalty of readers, which means increased revenues, either from ads or subscriptions.

If a publication does not have the time to create blogs, Brady suggests groups or discussion forums, where a personality can post questions a few times a week, and readers can respond and interact with each other.

He says that social networking tools are another idea, where readers can create their own pages and interact with other readers. An example of this is the washingtonpost.com’s Pluck. Comments from here can than be used on the website or in the printed paper.

Their site has also developed greatly in digital. It has partnered with Apple to build a custom iTunes page and also launched a program called On Being, a video storytelling project that allows users to post videos telling their everyday stories.

Jennifer Caroll went on to talk about Gannett and how they are using databases to help journalists be better ‘watchdogs.’

One of these is CinciNavigator, a database integrated with a map, which allows readers to learn about a wide variety of different topics. There has been a very positive response to this site.

RocDocs, a database used mostly for real estate has been developed by DemocratandChronicle.com.

Crowdsourcing, or allowing readers to contribute has been very successful. When a story is reported with connection to a database it gives readers a greater scope of information, making their contributions more useful.

More recently Web users are very interested in gaming for reasons such as gaining rewards, making friends, and building community.

Carroll summarized by saying the evolution of the Web is like this:
“Web 1.0 was all about sharing information, Web 2.0 was all about interaction, Web 3.0 is now about immersion – it’s people at the heart of the experience, not the data.”