Content Wise

Notable Links: May 16, 2010

iPad usability: First findings from user testing: iPad apps commit some of the same errors as early Web sites, says Jakob Nielsen's first report on the device's usability, including confusing navigation interfaces and inconsistent interactions. (Nielsen's Alertbox)

How to save the news: James Fallows says Google is the problem, er, the savior. (The Atlantic)

New Consumer Reports mobile website offers complete Ratings: In a smart move, Consumer Reports now allows users to tap into all the latest ratings wherever they are, free with a subscription to the main site or $5 per month. (ConsumerReports.org)

Putting a price on words: A primer in entrepreneurial online journalism models, where search and demand set the fees paid to contributors. (New York Times)

Guerrilla User Testing: Give Your Site a Quick-and-Dirty Reality Check

by Michael

There's no head slap like the head slap you give yourself while watching an innocent visitor stumble through your website. Sure it stings, but you know that it's good for you and that soon you'll feel better. It's a zesty, positive head slap. That's why this guy is smiling. -->

What's that? You haven't done any user testing lately? People: This is more important than flossing and Pilates.

Seriously, you'll be amazed at the practical power of this relatively simple process. As users stare cluelessly at what you thought were crystal clear navigation labels, as they look right past that big important button as if it were invisible, and as they wander off in search of their quarry along paths that you never intended them to take--you'll be collecting a nice, specific to-do list of inescapable, undeniable, fundamental flaws that need fixing.

If I'm sounding a tad zealous, that's probably because I myself am in the midst of beta testing a new site that Susan, a colleague, and I are launching. If you could see me right now (What, you thought that was me in the picture? Thanks a lot.), you'd be able to make out the palm prints on my forehead. But it hurts so good. We're going to make the necessary renovations and confirm that we've solved the problems with another round of tests. Our site will suddenly become vastly more user-friendly.

The good news is that user testing doesn't have to be a major production. And, according to such experts as usability guru Jakob Nielsen, you can do it yourself using a handful of test subjects. Nielsen advises that testing with just three to five users should help you spot the most critical problems on your site.

Ready to try it? Help yourself to Guerrilla User Testing, our guide to giving your site a usability reality check in a few hours.This is an update of a simple, step-by-step routine we used for many years in supervising participants' website critique sessions at the Stanford Publishing on the Web workshop.

The guide has examples of user tasks that you'll need to write up ahead of time, step-by-step instructions for taking each subject through the test in a neutral manner, and lots of other practical tips.

Here's one piece of critical advice to keep in mind as you conduct this humbling, sometimes nerve-wracking exercise. The user is never wrong. Or dim-witted. Or too unsophisticated. Your site must accommodate the way that real live people think and act.The user is always right.

But (sound of head being slapped) you knew that.

The CJR Study and the Case for Hiring a Web Editor

by Susan

In the conclusion of Columbia Journalism Review’s recent study, “Magazines and Their Web Sites,” the authors ask:

“What are the deepest implications of the finding that when a Web editor is in charge of both budget and content decisions, that traffic and revenue increase but quality and ethical standards decrease?”

That question made us go back and take a closer look at the study’s findings about sites run by Web-only editors.

These findings were widely reported:

• Magazine websites are more likely to be profitable and have higher traffic if an independent Web editor is in charge of the budget and content.
• Magazines with independent Web editors in charge of content decisions are about twice as likely to have a less rigorous fact-checking process for Web content than magazine editors have for print content, and almost three times as likely to have no fact-checking at all.
• Web editors who are in charge of content decisions are more likely to correct errors on their site, but they are also less likely to notify users of the corrections.

But these findings--equally interesting, if not more so--were less widely reported:

• When independent Web editors are in charge of online content, there is a greater tendency to have separate, dedicated staffs for print and Web, rather than a staff expected to work in both media.
• When independent Web editors are in charge of budgets, their sites are more likely to have a dedicated Web advertising team than when print editors or publishers are in charge.
• Magazine websites are more likely to have blogs when independent Web editors are in charge of the budget.
• When independent Web editors are in charge of budget or content decisions, their sites are more likely to have or include digital editions, RSS, podcasts, and versions of the site designed for mobile phones and e-books.

In other words, sites run by Web-only types are more likely to focus on and take full advantage of a digital approach—to be more Web-native. Which may be one reason why those sites have more traffic and are more profitable.

Yes, fact-checking is important. But the survey didn’t examine whether lower standards affect accuracy; newspapers, after all, traditionally have not used fact-checkers. What’s more, standards of fact-checking can easily be addressed--while successful strategies for online advertising, digital extensions, traffic growth, and profitability are way harder to come by.

Mind you, we strongly advocate collaboration and communication between the print and digital sides of a magazine or media company. But these findings suggest that for a magazine to find its voice online, it needs dedicated, online-only managers and thinkers.

So here’s our answer to CJR's question: The deepest implication seems to be that a Web-only editor can make a magazine's site the forward-looking, digital native it needs to be in order to succeed. If there's a choice, why hire anyone else?

Do you agree? Disagree? Please leave a comment and let us know.

Notable Links: March 27, 2010

Scrolling behavior and users' attention: Research from the Nielsen Norman group shows that, although users do scroll, they spend 80% of their time looking at information "above the fold." (Nielsen's Alertbox)

MPA's catalog of magazine apps: A constantly updated compendium of mobile applications produced by magazines and media companies. (MPA)

Social media presence is now a journalism job performance metric:Twitter is part of the job for most journalists these days. (Village Voice)

How magazines use social media to boost pass-along and build voice: Examples from Seventeen, Lapham's Quarterly, Sunset and others. (MediaShift)

The iPad could revitalize story-telling: Or not, depending on whether publishers push the boundaries, says E-Media Tidbits' Steve Myers. (Poynter Online)

Notable Links: March 20, 2010

ABC Redefines Digital Magazine: Planning for the move from print to digital e-reading devices, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has expanded its definition of a digital magazine (though it may still be too narrow). (Media Week)

Print Your Own Newspaper: The Newspaper Club, a London-based online start-up, enables anyone to print a customized 12-page newspaper. (BBC News)

Society of Professional Journalists Digital Media Handbook, Part I: Practical advice on everything from using social media as reporting tools to creating slide shows, interactive time lines, and better video. (Scribd)

The Future of Publishing--a Surprising Video: A very cool presentation by book publisher DK/Penguin. Be sure to watch to at least the halfway point. (Penguin)

10 Tips for Launching Almost Anything: Susan West, who spent the last year launching Afar magazine, offers useful guidelines for starting a magazine, a story, a writing career, etc. (West Gold Editorial)

Successful Site Redesign: Nine steps for a smooth, successful revamping of your website. (West Gold Editorial)

Tablets and the Shovelware Problem

by Susan

When it comes to magazines' companion websites, most thoughtful publishers have successfully solved the "shovelware" problem--they no longer just dump their content online. Instead, the better magazine-related sites have become useful, interactive entities in their own right, offering Web-native experiences. (Even if no one is paying to have that experience.)

Now, with the advent of the iPad and other tablets and e-readers, publishers are facing the same issue all over again. The tablet, with its touch screen and rich color, is "magazine-like." But it's not a magazine; this is another new medium, with its own native experience. A tablet edition will be--or should be--different from a print edition and different from a companion website.

Publishers are just starting to ponder this. We think it means taking a hard look at your editorial strategy and identity, and deciding what works best in each medium. Maybe you'll discover that the tablet and/or a website, not print, are the best media for your brand. How are you sorting this out?

Does Farmed Content Threaten "Wild-Caught" Journalism?

by Susan 

My Smithsonian pal Beth Py-Lieberman hipped me to a piece from Time magazine about Demand Media, which is a "content farm" that uses the Web's most popular search terms to decide which topics to cover (hence "demand"). The company's thousands of freelance writers--many of them newly unemployed, top-notch journalists--are paid just pennies per word to crank out articles such as "How to remove dents in a hair dryer" and "How do I donate a car in Dallas?" Editing and fact-checking are minimal. The pieces end up on Demand Media's popular sites eHow.com and Livestrong.com, as well as in print outlets such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Demand is valued at $1.3 billion.

The Time piece got me thinking about the debate over farmed vs wild-caught fish, and how journalism/content production seems to be in a similar fix: Sure, the farmed stuff meets the market demand, but it's less tasty, less nutritious, more likely to be tainted, and may threaten wild stock. What happens to "wild-caught" journalism--investigative stories and unexpected, richly reported narratives that take months of research and dedicated work by writer, editors, and fact-checkers--when farmed content floods the market?

Take NYU's nominees for The Top Ten Works of Journalism of the Decade. These stories, many of which you'll recognize as news-breaking and ground-shaking, are the result of curiosity, dedication, and independent thinking. The topics they cover may end up among popular search terms, but they didn't start out that way. And many of the news organizations that published these stories are struggling to survive.

What do you think? Does farmed content threaten wild-caught journalism? Or is there room for both?

Notable Links: March 13, 2010

Five Basic Things Authors Should Do Online: Good advice to help writers (and others!) get started in social media, with links to valuable resources. (52 Projects)

Six Ways to Stop the Social Media Madness: In case you're tempted to overdo it, here are tips on how to control the urge. (Web Worker Daily)

How to use Twitter as an SEO research tool: This video shows how Twitter can help you time the release of your content so it's likely to score high in search results. (SEOMoz)

Potential investors think Pandora could go public: The popular internet radio site has been on the verge of death for 10 years. Now it's the darling of investment bankers. (NYTimes)

Complete list of 2010 National Magazine Award nominees (ASME)

Readers Like Digital Mags More Than Web Sites

by Susan

This is good news for magazine publishers who are contemplating digital editions: According to a study by Smarter Media Sales, Nxtbook Media, and VIVmag (published by Zinio), readers/users find digital magazines more engaging than Web sites with similar content.

Readers rated digital magazines as substantially more authoritative, trustworthy, easy to read, better organized, and visually appealing. And, most important for that nagging bottom-line question, readers said digital mag ads are more credible and less intrusive than ads on Web sites.

Folio has a good summary.

Getting Writers Arrested: That's Our Department

By Susan

One of the regular departments we created for Afar magazine is "Spin the Globe." The idea is literally to spin a globe to pick a destination at random and send a writer there unprepared. It's all about the joy and spontaneity of traveling without an itinerary.

Well, as you can imagine, you can't predict what will happen with an approach like that, and, of course, that's part of the fun. In Afar's March/April issue, the Spin department took writer-actor Andrew McCarthy to Ethiopia where he explored the amazing underground churches of Lalibela. And promptly got arrested.

Check out the video, then read how People.com hyped the mishap. And you can buy the issue, on sale Feb 9.