Where's the Money?

According to Jeff Dowler, apparently there is little to no revenue stream currently being produced by Twitter. His research comes from a Wall Street Journal article that I don't feel like paying for, but apparently the company only had an underwhelming 45 employees as of this past May. With no cash coming in, since Twitter is free and does not advertise, they really are going to have to come up with something if they wish to stay in business with their current growth rate. I am still having some difficulty motivating myself to keep tweeting this week with interesting content, let alone have to pay for it first. There are already some little annoyances that I hold towards Twitter- its servers are slow, when they are actually up, the interface could be a lot easier-- but I personally don't think advertising would be an awful way to make some money. FB doesn't annoy me so much when it does... or does it?

I Like Sports!

Honestly, I think my experiment for this weekend fell flat on its face. I had the intention of going to the Giants game, adding as many updates about the plays as possible. I tried telling any of my friends who did not have access to a TV or radio to watch the game, to tune in to my Twitter account and see how it goes. Somewhere between the angry nearby fans yelling at me to get off my phone and watch the game, to the fact that I have like 3 friends who regularly use Twitter, I lost my drive to keep posting updates. I've found that as a fan, it's really hard to selflessly try to post update after update, if you are getting no enjoyment out of looking at your phone's screen for all 4 quarters.

However, I think that certain sports sites do it right, namely the U.S. Men's Soccer team, who hire employees to post on the twitterverse while the game is underway. Just look at the number of updates per minute, for the 90 minute duration of the sport with their last game against Denmark. I think these sites work, specifically because no one was airing this game live either on national television or on the radio. The fastest way, and more importantly the only real feasible way to see the results as they were underway was to sit on the team's page, and watch the tweets come in live while multitasking on the computer.

God Bless the Typo. Oh and Hashtags

I was trying to find some more uses for Twitter tonight, and accidentally produced this Google search by typing "best new sites to follow on twitter" instead of "news sites." Some of the random results on there showed me that Twitter is not just a place for information in the form of news media, but also a way to learn more one's interests or even their trade. There are so many articles that provide these kinds of lists that cater to whatever it is the Twitter user is interested in, it saves us not only the trouble of having to browse these sites, but just feeds their latest content directly to us on Twitter if we begin following them. Just from this search, I found the top music web sites, top "foodies" or lovers of wine and food (mostly the wine though... buncha lushes), and interestingly enough web designers as well. I had to look at the list of designers, and decided to follow the #1 ranked designer named Snook for the hell of it, and it seems like a different kind of experience. He talks a lot about programming, and will dialogue with other designers and wannabe designers, offering suggestions, joking around, and also debating about different programs and addons. It's like a glimpse into a community that I have no business being near, but unless he somehow feels compelled to block an image of a bald Russian man drinking a soda bottle all while wearing boxing gloves, I can continue to spy safely at a distance.

Anyways, I did see a neat article on my search from Mashable regarding how one could use twitter in order to track the Iran election published back in June. I was trying to think of a major world news story to try out Mashable's advice, at least for the first part regarding Twitter, and the only thing I could think of was Oprah's announcing that she is going off the air. I saw last night on the news that she was going to say exactly what the reasons for her retirement were on today's show, so what better way to find out than to turn to my trusted friends on Twitter? I typed '#Oprah' in the search field, and honestly, the results were useless. From "Yea bummer - #Oprah!" to "Super Sad Face at #Oprah" to "#Oprah is a QUITTER! Q-U-I-T-T-E-R there I said it!" none of these provided with any more information than I already knew. Trending topics definitely does not seem to be all too useful as a source of more information, but I could see why it could serve as an initial source-- you log onto Twitter, and see #Oprah or Oprah on the Trending Topics, you will begin searching to see why people are talking about her. However, I've seen how pointless these can be with one of the pro wrestlers I'm following (don't make fun) became a Trending Topic just by having his fans steal Chuck Norris jokes, and tweet them with his name in place of Norris'. These topics can be news, or they can be Internet trends, but whatever they may be, I'm still skeptical after tonight's experience.

Let's Get Tweetin

Alrighty, here we go. I've had this Twitter account "active" for a few months now, and I primarily used it after Shaq began tweeting in the middle of basketball games. I laughed upon hearing the big goon's antics, and decided to check it out, but quickly realized that I didn't want to do anything more than that. But here I am, back on the site, trying to find some new uses for this red-headed step child of a social networking site. I've decided to amp up the number of athletes I stalk, and have added Colin as well. I'm going to research a bit on the web to find out what other Twits/Tweeters/users are using the site for, and will check back in after I give some of these things an actual try.

There's a good idea... yoink!

Getting down to the more nitpicky details of our group's website, I looked at news sites across the web to see which ones have either the best format or little features that end up making a big difference. I used the 2009 Webby Awards as my authority on which sites are the best, looking at their Best News Site category specifically. The winner of the award was BBC.com, and for good reason. I love the top of the website right from the start: The search bar allows you to try and find your content on your own, the Help link explains how to navigate the site, a link to the news feed RSS option, constantly refreshing headlines appearing whenever there is an update, and a link to the "One-Minute World News." I haven't even gotten to any articles yet, and I already love what this site is doing. We will definitely be stealing the headline ticker, and I am really keen on the idea of concise, informative videos that save CT readers from having to search all over to find their news. If they see a piece of interest in the video, they can look at our more in depth articles on the site.

Other acts of theivery that we will be conducting include linking to other news websites, and listing their "hot topics" like the Daily Beast does at the bottom of our site. If our site's focus is specifically on CT political news including all of the state's major agencies, we can link to news sites covering other topics and have them do the same. Partnerships mean more readership if we can catch the attention of people who weren't aware of our site. I also like how Salon.com has links right at the top of their page for both Hot topics, as well as most read articles-- basically suggesting to the reader what will interest them. There are a lot of great concepts and features out there, and choosing the right ones to employ will be crucial to the CNP's future.

Tech Group - Beginnings

First and foremost, I must include a link to John's post because he has the cojones to say what I'm assuming the majority of us were thinking during the Q&A session/Monologue with Mark Pazniokas. I did have a question prepared and was ready to ask, but he quickly shot down my idea when he scoffed at a student's similar question, saying he was "not concerned with social networking marketing or advertising." I quickly put my hand down and do not have much hope for the site. As we've seen throughout the semester, social networking and the Internet are essentially the same freaking thing. To disregard Facebook and Twitter as valid methods to attract readers is downright foolish, and getting your name out there is just as important as having actual content.

When our tech heavy group met, our first topic of discussion was the site's launch, because we wanted to do very much the opposite of what Pazniokas is doing and spread the word around as much as possible. We are very much aware that we will first need some content before trying to spread the word, so we will amass stories and content for the first couple weeks or so, before pushing out the message in mass. We have plans to create a Facebook fan page and group page, complete with events both online and in person, a Twitter page posting tweets when our stories, and all of our developers will be posting about the site's launch simultaneously. We don't know if we necessarily want to send FB emails, as that is a little annoying, as opposed to posting in our status about the page's launch, and posting the first "major story" that we believe will hook the readers. Timing is everything, so exactly what the major story is, we wouldn't be able to say. If we are afforded the opportunity to have a journalist like Pazniokas on our staff who holds some degree of sway in the capitol, it shouldn't be too hard to get an exclusive interview or personal profile with a figure in the news today. Some examples we included were officials within Linda McMahon's camp (later launch) or officials within the DEP who were willing to discuss information about the whole Charla Nash lawsuit (sooner launch).

We have gotten off to a great start, and are resisting the urge to borrow anything "print" to stop ourselves from stepping on the hybrid group's toes. We are continuing to discuss what features we want to include, what the easiest layout to navigate would be (very easy to visualize thanks to Sheila's skeleton version of the site that she created), and how to distinguish ourselves as the CT news authority.

A Lil' More Seattle

Reading some of the blogs in class, it did become apparent that profit was a cause for concern. Really, how are these hyperlocal blogs going to make money through mostly hyperlocal advertising? I tried using the example I found in order to see if they were making anything out of the deal through their informal partnership with the Seattle Times. I checked out one of the participating hyperlocal blogs, and didn't find very much on the announcement of the partnership outlining the revenue goals, for obvious reasons. I found more interesting results in a business-oriented blog, on the part of John Cook's coverage of the partnership.

Cook doesn't announce anything groundbreaking-- he repeats the same phrasing that the official announcement did when it came to advertising: One of the goals is "Exploring tools that could enhance advertising opportunities across the partner sites." However, in the comments, things get a bit more interesting when a user says he thinks the passive banner ads are lame, and an employee of West Seattle Blog shows up. Apparently, even though one of the goals specifically says that they will explore new forms of advertising, according to Tracy at WSB "the Times partnership doesn't involve any discussion or collaboration on revenue generation at all." She defends the current system in place that features local business on a long, long list of banner ads-- or as she calls it, a business directory. A long, completely unorganized business directory. Anyways, I was hoping to see some collaboration of sorts on advertising and revenue, but it looks like that portion of journalism, arguably the most important considering these journalists want to make money in order to live, has been left out of the experiment.