Can Following ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ Power Reader Engagement?
Almost 10 years ago, four guys watching the way business was being done on the Web posted a 95-point proclamation of what worked and didn’t online. They called it “The Cluetrain Manifesto.” Its key tenets: Conversation is essential for business to thrive. Silence kills.
In the least year or so, I’ve heard more marketers like Ian Schafer of Deep Focus and Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research refer to it.
As news organizations scramble to engage its readers, it may be time to study the manifesto once more. And this time, it may pay off to read how market researchers are changing their engagement strategies. A good place to start is Cluetrain at 10.
For those who like slideshows, here are the 95 theses of the original Cluetrain Manifesto:
Photo by eye2eye/Flickr
Learning to Tell Better Video Stories, With Garrett Hubbard
Garrett Hubbard takes questions during a live Q&A online.
(Photograph by H. Darr Beiser/USA Today © 2008, used with permission)
Click below to read some of Garrett’s answers.
Creating Community, Connecting Industry at the ONA Conference
ONA08, the Online News Association’s national conference, has launched several sites online, where you can connect with others who will be in Washington, in person or in avatar, next week.
There’s:
- A Twitter feed that’s the “control tower” for all things ONA08 online
- An embeddable Twitter widget that collects all tweets tagged @ONA08 and #ONA08
- A pre-conference podcast series (RSS feed | iTunes subscription)
- A public bulletin board for discussing panels and workshops, arranging meetings, and making last-minute announcements
- A conference-focused Facebook group
- And the ONA08 conference homepage, where you’ll find on-the-scene reports about ONA08 produced by the very talented student newsroom.
My team, the ONA08 Social Media Subcommittee, wants to make ONA08 as much about community as it is about industry. I hope you’ll join the conference online and in person. And if you want to get a hold of me, send me a message or reach me on Twitter.
The Subcommittee members are Mary Ann Chick Whiteside, who will be among those liveblogging the conference; Paul Hyland, who’s been a creative sounding board and instrumental in gathering volunteers for on-site help; and Steven Lubetkin, who’s putting in a tremendous effort producing the podcasts. This conference is made possible in no small part because of them.
Pitch Perfect: Learning How to Craft a Magazine Story Proposal
Most freelancers will tell you when it comes to deciding who to write for, choose magazines. The pay better. And there’s something nice about seeing your name, your photos, your work on glossy — or if it’s a “green” publication, matte — textweight stock.
They’ll also tell you it’s good to develop relationships with editors. After all, getting assignments is as much about who you know as it is about your story idea.
But what if you’ve never pitched before? Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest are two sources for beginners’ guidance. Freelance Success has morphed into a dynamic community of newish and experienced guns for hire. And MediaBistro’s popular writing classes provide in-person and online experience with feedback from working professionals.
There’s a lot you can learn online as well. Jason Tanz is posting a step-by-step blogged article about how landing a profile of “Adaptation” screenwriter Charlie Kaufman in Wired magazine. If you’re curious about the pitch process, check it out.
And to show you how quickly word spreads online, check out the Google search.
Looking for Ideas for Interactive Storytelling?
Drew DeVigal’s Interactive Narratives has relaunched.
The site is a searchable database “designed to capture the best of online visual storytelling around the country and the world.”
Register, and you can submit your own work, as well as vote on and critique others’ multimedia projects.
“Our goal is to highlight rich-media content, engaging storytelling, and eye-popping design in an environment that fosters interaction, discussion, and learning,” writes DeVigal, who is multimedia editor at The New York Times.
As storytelling online evolves from the straight-ahead text+photos/photo gallery+video format, this new site should be an interesting resource to see what other people are doing. Best of all, you don’t have to be a journalist to participate.
Want to Get a Grip on Rails? Check This Out
Carlos Brando, a Ruby on Rails developer, has released a free book covering the Ruby on Rails 2.1 updates.
It’s a pretty good overview for those new to the latest version of Rails. And hey, you can’t beat the price.
(via Ruby Inside)
One for Fun: Want a Mapfaced or Evernote Beta Invite?*
It’s the end of the week, which means time for Ricochet’s One for Fun.
Today, I’m giving away private beta invites.
Update: All the invites are gone. If I get more in the future, I’ll post a new note.
Mapfaced allows users to create, search for and rate food and drink crawls in New York City. It’s positioned to be part map mashup, part Yelp.
Evernote is a multiplatform notetaking and clip organizing tool. It’s been around since at least 2005, but the new incarnation allows you to pass clips to Evernote from PCs (Windows XP/Vista) and Macs (Leopard), phones running Windows Media, and Web browsers (Firefox 2, Safari 3, IE7).
There’s even an alpha test of IMAP support, so iPhone users can browse, clip and send to an Evernote account too.
Want to check either of these out? Post a comment telling me which site you’d like to try (one site only) and your email. And if you have a favorite bar or restaurant you’d like to recommend, post that too.
I’ve only got a few invites for each site. First come, first served.
Maximizing Story Traffic With Half-Life Analysis
I love The Economist.
You may scoff at their Web site, but there are few sources that analyze business and world affairs as well or as soberly.
On March 6, they published a story called, “Hold the Front Page,” which described an HP Social Computing Lab study that tried to answer the question: How do you maximize attention for stories on a Web page?
To conduct the experiment, researchers Fang Wu (no relation) and Bernardo Huberman simulated the behavior of stories on Digg, pitting popularity against newness.
They discovered that while a fresh story may drive a lot of traffic at first, there will come a time when story popularity matters more. As I understand the conclusion, exactly when that happens varies from site to site, depending on each site’s reader patterns.
The full text of the Fang-Huberman study (written for scientists), makes for some really interesting reading if your head doesn’t explode over the math, and makes a case for news organizations to study traffic patterns closely.
As The Economist states:
“…You would be wise to learn more about exactly how interest in your stories cools off, if you want to display those stories in a way that will entice the largest number of people to read them.”
How to Make the Most of Your Next Conference
Social media consultant Chris Brogan has posted 10 tips for conference goers.
Since the season is about to get into full swing, here are some of the best ideas from the list:
- Scour the web (technorati and Google Blogsearch) to see who’s coming, and reach out to people you want to see.
- Have a really simple, brief sentence to answer: “What do you do?” “What are you working on these days?” “What brings you to the conference?”
- Never assume people are better than you, or that you’re somehow not good enough or important. You are. And if people don’t know you yet, go in like they know you reasonably well anyway.
People naturally flock together in safe, familiar groups, especially when they find themselves amid a sea of strangers. But to learn anything new, it’s more useful to break away now and then. For the shy, there’s an entire wiki on how to start a conversation.
What do you do to get the most out of seminars / panels / expos / conferences?
Computation + Journalism Videos Posted
Didn’t make it to the Journalism 3G symposium in Atlanta? Catch up on what you missed.
Georgia Tech has posted videos of the talks and panels, and links posted by conference attendees.
