the onion - ReadWriteWeb http://www.readwriteweb.com/feeds/tag/the onion en Copyright 2012 Richard MacManus readwriteweb@gmail.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 07:00:00 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=4.35-en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Big Question (Answered): "Did the Onion Step Over the Line Today with the #CongressHostage Tweets" big-question-150.pngThe outrage over The Onion's Orson Wells-like faux terrorism tweets today has touched off a firestorm. Is The Onion shining a needed light on our reactionary culture? Should comedians be allowed to do whatever they deem satirical? Even we could not agree, as you can see in the comments within our post on The Onion's #CongressHostage tweets.

We asked you what you thought about the story and you answered and then we culled your responses from Twitter and Google Plus and we used Storify to present it all back to you. If you have additional responses, please leave them in the comments.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/big_question_answered_did_the_onion_step_over_the.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/big_question_answered_did_the_onion_step_over_the.php Community Thu, 29 Sep 2011 15:00:00 -0800 Robyn Tippins
As News Goes From Print to Pixels, The Onion Thrives onion_iphone_logo.png
As many print media outlets continue to struggle to find their place in an increasingly digital ecosystem, the satirical newspaper The Onion has managed to not only make the most the Web and social media, but also continue to expand into new markets and new mediums.

On the second day of ReadWriteWeb's 2Way Summit Tuesday, a team of Onion staffers walked attendees through the publication's history, from its fictitious beginnings in 1756 all the way to its modern experimentation with social media and expansion into broadcast.

]]> The company, which was actually founded in 1988 in Madison Wisconson, started publishing online in 1996. At the time, the Web was still in its infancy and the advantage of publishing there was not yet obvious, even to Features Editor Joe Garden, as he confessed during the panel discussion.

Today, The Onion's Website boasts 7 million unique visitors per month, plus an additional 2 million visits to A.V. Club, The Onion's non-satirical sister publication dedicated to arts and culture coverage. Most recently, the publications expanded to Philadelphia, with The Onion launching a print edition there and A.V. Club Philadelphia going live in February 2011.

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From left to right: The Onion's Features Editor Joe Garden, Editorial Manager Kate Palmer, Writer Geoff Haggerty, Digital Product Manager Matt Kirsch and Digital Director Baratunde Thurston.

Leading the charge on the digital front is Baratunde Thurston, The Onion's Director of Digital, who was joined at the 2Way Summit by Digital Product Manager Matt Kirsh.

"In terms of our strategy, we just try to be everywhere," said Thurston. "We're trying to be where our audience is, because that audience isn't necessarily the type to come to theonion.com as their start page everyday. That kind of strategy of content distribution is over."

Two key components to that strategy are mobile and social, or as Thurston jokingly called it, "mocial," a newly-coined buzzword later repeated by the W3C's Jeff Jaffe during his kenote at the 2Way Summit.

On the mobile front, The Onion has produced mobile versions of its Websites, which are coded with HTML5 and developed in-house. Additionally, apps for iOS and Android have proven quite popular among the publication's readership, which Thurston said was more savvy with the Web and mobile devices than that of many other print media organizations. Those mobile applications have garnered over 2 million downloads to date.

Social media have also been at the forefront of how The Onion connects with its audience online. With 2.9 million Twitter followers and 1.8 million Facebook fans, the publication is able to not only broaden the reach of its content, but interact with that community in creative ways.

One example cited by the team was the Web-fueled development of an Onion News Network broadcast story titled "Al Qaeda Attacks Internet With Photo of Adorable Piglet". Prior to airing the story, staffers planted a photograph of a piglet wearing red boots on various Websites and then used Twitter and Facebook to help the photo go viral. Tapping into the very heart of the Web, they even published a poll asking readers whether they thought the piglet was cuter than Justin Bieber. The whole experiment led to a surge in followers for the Onion News Network Twitter account.

The digital team shared other social media successes they experienced, including an Oscar night Twitter follower bump for one anchor and the overwhelming popularity on Facebook of a headline that read "Trump Unable To Produce Certificate Proving He's Not A Festering Pile Of Shit".

Watch live streaming video from readwriteweb at livestream.com

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/as_news_goes_from_print_to_pixels_the_onion_thrives.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/as_news_goes_from_print_to_pixels_the_onion_thrives.php RWW 2WAY 2011 Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:30:00 -0800 John Paul Titlow
Baratunde Thurston on Content Curation, Real-Time Search, and "Analytics Porn" In New York City, on the 16th floor of the Roger Smith Hotel, we caught up with social media superhero Baratunde Thurston, web editor for The Onion.

Thurston started getting into this whole "Internet" thing in simpler times when the social web was called Usenet. He now carves out his niche at the overlap of the Venn diagram of comedy, politics, and tech. As an official Internet old-timer who makes it his business to stay relevant, Thurston has particularly useful insights on the business of curating applicable content with great efficiency and timeliness.

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"I remember," Thurston said, "back in 1996 or 1997, when you could finish the Internet... You could stay up until two or three in the morning and go to sleep and know, 'I read the Internet today.'" Simpler times, indeed.

So, with the mind-boggling multiplicity of blogs, news sites, and social networks, how does a professional netizen maintain cultural and technological relevance? And what tools does the modern, socially cognizant webmaster use to track and optimize traffic in real time? Call us cruel, but we prefer you watch the video and hear it all firsthand.

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http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/baratunde_thurston_on_parsing_content_real-time_se.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/baratunde_thurston_on_parsing_content_real-time_se.php People in Tech Mon, 18 May 2009 21:13:25 -0800 Jolie O'Dell