Big web pow-wow
Sorry for being a day late with the Listening Post this week. Yesterday NCPR had an all-day retreat to have a big think about our future in online media. This is the first time since ncpr.org was launched almost ten years ago that we have all gathered together around these issues. A lot has changed in the intervening years. The most important top-level changes have occured in three areas:
1. The notion of a single web site as a destination toward which the audience is directed is outmoded. An online media operation must now be able to function across multiple sites and platforms--to go to where the audience goes--as well as to bring the audience to where the media operation lives.
2. The notion that an online media operation is one that "talks" while others "listen" is outmoded. People have the expectation of two-way communication and active participation. Instead of being the folks that own the microphone, we are members of a social network comprised of NCPR and "the group formerly known as the audience."
3. The notion that the online media operation creates the content and the audience talks about the content is outmoded. Part of a public service mission online is to put tools in the hands of citizens to create media directly, or to collaborate in the process by which online media is created.
There is a lot of tactical thinking involved in addressing these new realities. We are hoping that Listening Post readers can help us with that thinking. Where do you expect to find an active NCPR presence? What kinds of interaction do you want to have with the NCPR community? What is missing from our service that you think should be within our "wheelhouse?" What are we wasting time on that doesn't well serve the community? What questions are we forgetting to ask? Let us knows what's working or not working for you in what we offer on various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and mobile devices, as well as at ncpr.org.
More at Big web pow-wow, part 2
Labels: public radio, social networking
posted by Dale Hobson @ 2/19/2010
14 comments
14 Comments:
That you don't have a presence on Facebook is a little surprising to me. Someone else appears to have taken that ball and run with it on your behalf, forming a group of devoted listeners. You should start a formal, "official" presence there.
Rom--
We do have a page at Facebook, fairly new, with about 400 fans. We are having a problem with links back to NCPR from Facebook, due to a recent security attack on our website (since resolved.) It is mostly fed automatically with content from our news page and blogs, but also includes a Flickr box with our Photo of the Day feature, and a Youtube box for NCPR video. What else would you like to see happening there?
Your use of the Your use of the word: "Wheelhouse". Seems to me the first step in understanding your role would be to use normal language; your use of 'wheelhouse' must mean something to NCPR staffers. But check the dictionary and pls tell me how your use makes sense.
Disciplined communication within NCPR and with the community is an important first step.
You cite three 'new realities' and then encourage your readers to discuss the tactics surrounding them. However, I question your assumption that these three new realities are your three most strategic issues.
I encourage NCPR to spend much more time with thinking throught the strategic part.
I still think NCPRs primary communication should be over the air. The blogging is popular, but I'm afraid it's driven by unappealing human characteristic -"listening in" on other people's arguing,complaining, and rude behavior. Too often it appears to be the media arguing with the media, not necessarily the audience participating. I think NCPR should be wary of falling into that trap. Most importantly, we count on NCPR for intelligent journalism. The blogs(and walls?)are often filled with muck. I think all organizations have to do the social media stuff, but don't expect it to improve the intellectual level of dialogue, the quality of journalism or to bring in financial support. Yes, stay focused on core mission.
Anonymous 1:46: I apologize for my lamentable lapse into jargon. I understand the phrase "within our wheelhouse" to mean an effort that is consistent with our core public service mission, and consistent with our capabilities.
Anon 2:01: What do you think are the primary strategic challenges NCPR faces going forward? I did leave one obvious one out--How do we make new efforts online sustainable? How do we pay for them, and what other costs in attention (and inattention) are associated with them.
Diane 2:11: On air is still and will likely remain our most important platform for the near and mid-term. And most of our resources go to supporting the broadcast effort. About 7-8% of station resources go to supporting the online effort. Too little? Too much?
I agree that there is high "noise level" in social media of all kinds. But I also recall what a wasteland the web was in general when we began--an unusable combination of mall/porn palace/hamster dance nonsense. It took a lot of effort to carve out a functioning public square in the cyberspatial sprawl. I don't expect the effort to be any smaller in making social media serve the public interest.
If NCPR allows its primary focus to drift away from on-air broadcasting, my concern is that more resources and time spent on social media spreads resources that are already thin, too thin and that the evolving technology may end up having a very high cost that detracts from on-air capabilities and resources. By attempting to be all things to all people you may be adding to the clutter as opposed to uplifting the conversation. It strikes me that the social media technology may be a necessary but unwanted burden for public radio.
Are you chasing the soup du jour at the expense of the main course?
Perhaps I'm an old dog resisting new tricks, but I have supported this station for over 30 years and would be interested to know of the support coming from those using the social media facet of NCPR. Is the loyalty of the social media user comparable to the traditional listener? Is listener/user participation/loyalty/support of consequence for the survival of the station? If so, where is that support currently coming from? Who's renewing annually? What segment of the listener/user population?
I am looking for less clutter in my life and find the current conversation regarding platforms and the importance of selecting the right one as a trip down a rabbit hole that may have little consequence 2 years from now because the new latest thing has just hit. It's a race you may want to avoid in that ultimately NCPR is spread so thin that mediocrity is the consequence, and its attempt to please everyone pleases no one.
Greetings,
I don't have an answer in mind, but, like many others here, my focus is the on-air presence and in what ways a web-community might enhance that presence. In what *specific* ways can this be achieved? I feel certain there is a symbiosis between the web and the airwaves, but, alas, I don't have a particular formula to suggest.
I'm uneasy with the big social sites, and my personal preference is the kind of online presence of a dedicated forum rather than a something noisy and chaotic like Facebook. One potential mode is discussion-community forum software like phpBB, for example. You could choose to host it yourself or use a hosting service.
It seems a major strategy of the social sites is to distract and keep one clicking around inside for hours at a time. Whenever I go on Facebook, I become trapped and forget why in heck I'm there in the first place :):) Regards, RAF.
I would start by eliminating the incessant references to checking the weather at ncpr.org. I mean, c'mon, is that really what people need to hear? I can get weather anywhere, give me a better reason to visit your website - breaking news / commentary / more in depth coverage of a story etc...
Similar to Diane, The Mayor, and others, I'm also concerned about online issues detracting from the core NCPR mission of quality over the air radio. I almost never visit your website and have zero interest in using social media in this context. Public radio needs to pursue quality, objective journalism, not fall prey to what you contend in point #3. I prefer being a consumer vs. creator of media content. Blogs and other social media come with an inherent danger of diminshed objectivy and oversight in the name of open access and uncontrolled communication.
Hi all--
I fully understand the reluctance to divert scarce resources from one platform with a solid history of public value, our broadcast, to one or more platforms that may seem more like the flavor of the week. That is why we have moved slowly, and on a small scale into new areas. But the numbers already are informative:
Our Facebook page (mostly automated reposts of news and blog features) already receives 10% as many visitors as our main website, and sends more than 1000 visitors per month to the site. Our Twitter feed, similarly automated, sends another 1000 visitors a month on to the main site.
Our news blog now receives as much traffic as the whole audio news section of the website and generates more comments in one month than the whole site recived in the five years preceding the launch of the blog.
Our stats tell us that these are much more likely to be new audience than our conventional web visitors and regular listeners. This is important to our future growth and sustainability. They trend substantially younger than our regular web audience, which itself trends younger than our broadcast audience.
Commenters here have raised some big questions about mission and about distraction from that mission. So let me pose this question. Does NCPR's mission change when translated to new platforms? How? How would you describe our mission on air, online, and in a social media environment?
Hi!
The web stuff is nice and all - but really stick with the broadcast mission - it's what you do! I'd like to see fewere music programs, music can be had so easliy so many places and the music shows are really rather uninteresting. It would be great to have true evening programming, like Wait, Wait on a thurday night, and TTBOOK on a Wed. night, selected shorts one night. All your best shows are during the day on Sunday or M-F 10-3, what about people who work???? We need some radio too and something deeper than just the news. I MISS talk of the nation even though I could only listen occasionally when I was lucky enough to be driving during that time. Thanks!
Make it easier to find stuff on your website!!! I always here "for more information go to our website..." but then, to dfind that particular thing, especially a few days later - IMPOSSIBLE! stick to that, people have pleny of other places to blog about and usually, it's not too enlightening. Thanks!
It's a toolbox. I'm not easily impressed with gadgets or gimmickry; I'm not an earlier adopter of anything. I do, however, have great respect for craftspeople who use tools well to create wonderful objects or compelling art or riveting radio. There's a lot of tacky craft work out there, an infinite amount of lousy art, and some pretty awful radio. Does this mean we don't use those tools--a chisel and hammer, a paintbrush or a microphone--because there's bad stuff out on the traditional cultural and media landscape? On the contrary, it means we take the tools at hand to make superb and important work. Ditto for the landscape of digital media. If there's junk out there and useless noise, let's push back with the good stuff. We can do it--that's our job as a public media entity--and your job as the public media PUBLIC.
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