By GREGG GIORDANO
Forbes is a company that finally realized they are in a game of catch up. They are not alone. Many news organizations did not catch the Internet train years ago and are ruing the day they thought of the Internet as a “fad” that wouldn’t last. The popularity of online news rapidly increases while print journalism is on a steady decline.
Gregg Giordano
Every few years we see some new contraption that can fit inside your pocket, or even on your wrist, that tells you all the top stories of the day. You can get all the information you want to know before you get to the end of your driveway to pick up your print copy of the same stories. Usually those same print stories are ‘old news’ by the time you read them anyway.
News organizations like Forbes now have to play a serious game of catch-up, and they know it. They have implemented practices of encouraging their reporters to use social media to allow stories the opportunity to trend and gain traction online. This is a step in the right direction, but maybe a little too late.
When it comes to creating and marketing websites, Mark Briggs stresses quality over quantity. That is the big picture idea that I took away from the readings. You may have a great website with many different sections on various topics but at the end of the day if the content isn’t appealing or attractive, the website won’t bring visitors.
The ‘throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks’ model is actually the way to go, as Briggs says. You see what works and see what doesn’t. Tweak it a little, then try again. Keep trying until you are happy and the audience is happy. This is true in a lot of areas in life but more so in the fickle world of the Internet where your audience wants to feel included, as apposed to preached to.
Jonah Peretti started the website BuzzFeed in 2006 as a ‘viral lab’ where staff would upload Do It Yourself tutorials, quizzes, interesting facts, viral videos, and staff commentary on social issues and politics. Before long the website was visited by 30 million visitors a month.
What BuzzFeed does tremendously is the fact that they have many subsections but advertise them all equally so not to become just one type of site. Niche sites are important, as Briggs says, but I believe the fact that BuzzFeed is SO varied is a niche into itself.
Every topic featured is fun, mildly inappropriate, engaging, topical, and something that people want to spend five to ten minutes of their day staring at. If you don’t agree, go ahead and scroll through your newsfeed right now. You will be inundated with BuzzFeed articles, clips, and videos that are shared by the million.
The beauty of BuzzFeed is they are a journalistic website without you even knowing it. Showcased right between ’50 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex and The City’ and how the ‘2014 VMAs Were Officially Sponsored By Butts’ is a story about the Scottish independence and the impending vote for secession. The story is attractive and looks interesting enough that before you know it you have gained information that you thought you previously would not care to know about, at least I did.
What I took away most from Briggs was the idea that it is OK to fail. It is OK to put your heart into something. It is also OK to have it come back broken, because if it’s a good idea and you are smart enough and work hard enough it will work out and pay off in the end.