Online Journalism Practicum:J415

This was an interesting discussion. I was particularily interested in the part on filters and whether propositions are profound to the community.

I think this is one of the biggest aspects Speakeasy needs to work on. We are attempting to serve the student body at Ohio University in an online forum, yet we are doing the same things that are offered by the Post and the Athens news. I think one of the best things we can do as an online news source is begin to caitalize on our potential for multimedia.

Post local band's music clips online, record interviews, put together short videos, etc. I think by offering these students will be drawn to the site as a more visually stunning way to get their news than newspapers. There is a lot of potential for Speakeasy, it's just a matter of making that part of our online forum.

Thanks for taking the time to "meet" with us on Tuesday. It was a really great discussion.

The audience development tips were definitely helpful, especially for Speakeasy as a developing site. It will definitely be a challenge for us to focus in on a specific audience without narrowing it down too much. The "filters" are a great way to think about it - that idea makes it a little easier to get our heads around the task of finding an audience.

I thought the discusson was also very interesting, and was especially interested in how services are becoming more human in approach, and many products, like the Ipod, are nothing without a service. When I started to think about it, there are many other products which have little value unless you purchase the service, as well.

This same idea has been adopted by many online publications. For example, the New York Times requires users to register on the site to gain full access to articles. They may not have to pay at the present time for this information service, but the website only has substantial value if they do.

Services do seem to have become more human in approach. Through Itunes, Ipod users feel they are creating their own personal music collection. On news websites, from the NY Times to CNN to Yahoo, upon signing up for the service users can choose what news they want to recieve, if they want to register for additional offers, and often choose the design of their "homepage". They are ususally greeted upon login with a line of text saying "Hi, so-and-so!!" which makes them feel included.

Also, by taking inspiration by certain mainstream personas, developers can ensure the needs of these people are met and that the products/services introduced will meet their expectations.

Remember that the processes of audience segmentation and developing a value proposition have few absolutes. There's no one right answer. But here's a way to think about it:

Broader value proposition -> larger potential audience -> incidental value more likely -> more uniques with less loyalty

Narrower value proposition -> smaller potential audience -> profound value more likely -> fewer uniques with more loyalty

You can be successful along either path, but this helps you decide what resources are required and how to allocate them. All I can say is, if I had to choose between developing many niche brands online, and developing one portal/umbrella brand online, I'd choose niche every time.

first of all thanks to jay for speaking to us tuesday. i found the discussion to be very helpful.

like ellen and jen said, speakeasy has been attempting to define our audience a little better for a while now. as it stands we are offering what is more a "department-store" service, trying to cover all aspects of campus. it's hard to get away from that because we want all students to feel like they can come to the site and find something that interests them.

i think the fiter idea is a great way to go about it. we've talked a lot about making speakeasy a culture-based site, more entertainment oriented and utilizing multi-media to the max once we get people used to that idea.

i think we basically want to make speakeasy something students WANT to come to because we have stuff they're interested in and in a sense need to because they can't find what we offer anywhere else. Going into this we talked a lot about lawrence.com, especially after having Rob Curley here; we used that site as a model, in fact any site we did get inspiration from wasn't a site we are in compeition with but sites that served the need we want to serve, just in other markets. This way we've seen what does work and what doesn't work. And obviously, in the case of lawrence.com, extermely local news with that entertainment/culture spin can work.

In digesting this whole lecture, I'd like to comment specifically on how targeting the younger audience of non-newspaper readers pertains to Speakeasy.

The nationwide decline in newspaper young adult readership is tangible on our campus. I don't think it would be assuming too much to say that most students at OU don't read the newspaper - either at all or with any regularity.

Speakeasy needs to be "going after unassuming content that might not appeal to an editor's sophisticated palate" (http://www.naa.org/artpage.cfm?aid=6144). It would be silly for us to continue our newspaper model: a catch-all of news (campus, culture, limelight) that our audience doesn't read in print. With three print news publications in Athens, Speakeasy's strongest competition is The Athens News (which focuses more on culture than the other two). I see Speakeasy as having a profound value proposition in the future, targeting specific segments of campus culture to create our brand rather than spreading ourselves thin.

Super important in the NAA.org article and to Speakeasy: "Newspapers need to present news and information that is relevant to people and touches their lives in some meaningful way." This is embodied in our limelight section. Speakeasy is a believer that if we report on the interesting and the remote, we'll stand out and be read for our unique perspective.

I think the way we're traditionally taught to report on news in our classes is dying - both online and in print. Our generation isn't trained to understand the style of reporting our parents grew up with. When I do pick up a newspaper, this is what I see: gilted sentences, thrown-in quotes, the informative, but not captivating, lede. Does the city council meeting wrap-up add anything to our media discourse? Is there a purpose, other than to fill up inches?

I see a break from formality happening, especially online (i.e. blogging). I'd love to take Speakeasy away from the ritual of strictly reporting news to reporting news with a purpose. Our audience filters should reflect this.