Poll: Should a newspaper be a social network?
The title of this week's poll is taken straight from Matthew Ingram's post about USA Today's re-design. The new-look USA Today incorporates many of the social networking features that have become popular over the last year or so. Or as the editor of USA Today put it: "the real change is in the approach, not the appearance." And the approach, in a nutshell, is to merge traditional journalistic reporting with social software. The changes, as summarized by USA Today, enable their readers to:
• Scan other news sources directly on USATODAY.com;
• See how readers are reacting to stories;
• Recommend stories and comments to other readers;
• Comment directly on stories;
• Participate in discussion forums;
• Write reviews (of movies, music and more);
• Contribute photos;
• Better communicate with USA TODAY staff.
The USA Today re-design has predictably caused a massive weekend scrum at Techmeme, with many bloggers excited about the changes. But as Don Dodge precisely points out, 92% of USA Today's own readers dislike the changes. This is reminiscent of the Netscape re-design last year, when the portal Netscape changed overnight into a Digg clone - causing howls of outrage from Netscape's traditional user base.
So to the poll. We're interested in the high level trend here. Are newspapers going to morph into social networks over time, a place where people not only read the news but socialize with other readers (and journalists)? Or is this more evidence that the MySpace craze has gone too far...
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USA Today doesn't become a social networking site, just adds some social features, which is good IMO. My choice was c) "No newspapers won't become social networks, but social software features are welcome"
Posted by: Emre Sokullu | March 5, 2007 1:12 AM
The Web is a social network. USA Today is just a brand and source of news. Successful portals will increasingly provide social tools to their users as the technology becomes more standard. In the meantime, all these sites are going to continue to be their own little so-called 'social networks,' but hang on people -the real Web is on the way!
Posted by: Andrew A. Peterson | March 5, 2007 1:41 AM
I voted "Yes" but fully admit it is too early and our techy. mindsets too inward looking at present.
Posted by: Paul M. Watson | March 5, 2007 2:18 AM
Forget what the traditional USA Today readers want, and forget what the blogosphere wants; the question is, which direction gives USA Today the best outlook? And it's quite obvious that a decision has already been made.
Newspapers wouldn't even be on-line if they didn't have to be, and USA Today wouldn't have implemented social networking features into their core service if they didn't feel they had to. Both the NYTimes and USA Today have made moves, so it's only a matter of time before others do too.
Paul M.Watson - As a tech blog RSS fiend, I'm very weary of cultivating an inward looking techy mindset. But I'm also 22 years old and watching all my friends grow up on social networks. They can't get enough of the stuff, especially Facebook. I can tell you there really is no going back.
Posted by: NeilCauldwell | March 5, 2007 3:03 AM
I dont think its such a big change, few improvements are made, some cool features are added.
Of course in the begining people will start to over react but in time they will get used to these features.
Dont be afraid of changes. The whole web is changing so why not USA Today.
Posted by: Biser | March 5, 2007 3:14 AM
Newspapers should select the stories themselves but allow users to vote, recommend etc.
It should be a hybrid of Slashdot (editors submit stories) with Digg (users vote on stories).
Posted by: infonote | March 23, 2007 1:36 PM