Dan Pacheco

1
Participatory Media Making the audience
part of the conversation

• Dan Pacheco
• Senior Product Manager
• The Bakersfield Californian
• dpacheco_at_bakersfield.com / dan_at_futureforecast.com

2
How has media changed?

• The line between reporter and reader is blurring.
• Reporters getting scooped by bloggers
• Collective blogs (citizen journalism), re-editing
  (slashdot)
• Readers expect more of a conversation
• Point and counterpoint between reporters,
  bloggers, readers
• The term readers is tired. Audience the new
  buzz word.
• And its not just happening with news!
• Social networking (MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn)
  is emerging as a major mass medium, especially
  with younger audiences
• Self-serve advertising is taking over, largely
  outside of our walls

3
Why is Participation Important?

• As audiences fragment, community ties them
  together.
• Less time, more choices, and enabling technology
  cause people to gravitate toward the 1 or 2
  things they care most about.
• Successful community products serve niches.
• One size fits all only gets you so far.
• Niche audiences expect interactivity.
• Reading and consuming media is only where it
  starts.
• People with specific interest, identity want to
  connect with others.
• Impossible to serve every niche with staff alone
• Let the community help! Self-serve publishing,
  ads, everything.
• In the future, 30 of our editorial, ad staffs
  will evolve into thought leaders and facilitators
  of publishing and conversations.

4
Bakotopia.com and Bakomatic

• Created Bakotopia.com, niche participatory Web
  site for young people in Bakersfield.
• Intentionally separate from newspaper.
• Underground flavor.
• Created a generic, multi-brand community platform
  that let us do the same for many audiences.
• One site is now 7 and growing!
• Key features
• Content, both from us and from the community.
• Social tools that help people
• Make friends, find dates
• Meet and converse with people with shared
  interests
• Find people with stuff to sell/recycle, or to buy
  my stuff

5
Bakotopia.com

• 2006 EDGIE WINNER for Most Innovative Visitor
  Participation!
• First direct Craigslist competitor created by a
  U.S. newspaper. Only 2nd in world after Sydney!
• Launched Jan. 2005. Craigslist opened in
  Bakersfield next day.
• Web site only no print (yet).
• Targeted at Bakersfield youth young at heart
  (18-35).

http//www.bakotopia.com
6
Bakotopias Value Proposition

• Driving behaviors
• Bands, events, socializing. No news, but people
  post reviews.
• People post things for sale, musicians wanted
  ads.
• Users create profiles, and bands upload music.

• Grass-roots marketing, profiles, social
  networking are drivers.

Rank Feature
Home page Posting stuff Viewing
categories Viewing profiles Viewing
interests Reading content
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
The users are the content! Note that profiles and
connecting beat content in traffic hands down!
7
Persona its all about ME!

• User profiles let people
• Express themselves and their interests
• Bands can showcase music
• Link to friends profiles
• Rate each other

View Recent Profiles
8
Band Radio Podcast

• Bands can upload music to their profiles
• We approve new tunes, but after that its
  hands-off.
• Best stuff shows up on home page, in Bakotunes
  Podcast.

Play Bakotunes
9
Interests Find Your Vibe
(View Recent Interests)
10
How Interests Work
Find people who share your vibe in just a few
clicks. (Try it here)
Nice circular traffic that builds pageviews!
11
Social Networking, continued
Will you be my friend?
Let the users market you by marketing themselves!
12
Social Networking Media

• How does it relate to media?
• Gives people a sense of ownership of something
  connected with your brand.
• My profile, My Space, My blog
• Persona and identity are central to civil
  conversations.
• If I know who you are and what youre into, I can
  talk to you.
• People often find each other through shared
  interests. They do it through news stories now.
  This makes it easier.
• Great way to drive frequency
• Ill go online to read guestbook posts on my
  profile long before I will to read a news story.
• Social networking lets users market your site for
  you!

13
Why did we build our own?

• Launched Northwest Voice on a vendor (iUpload).
  Realized we needed an economical way to serve
  many disparate audiences, and observe activity
  across them all (total market reach).
• The needs of Bakotopia, our youth brand, were
  way out of the scope of citizen journalism.
  Examples free anonymous listings, bands music,
  user profiles, social networking.
• We didnt want something that was created to spec
  for the lowest-common-denominator newspaper
  customer.

14
Before Bakotopia, Northwest Voice

• The first participatory media / citizen
  journalism product created by a U.S. newspaper.
• People submit articles through the Web site, or
  via e-mail.
• Kids accomplishments, recipes, and sometimes
  controversial stuff going on at the neighborhood
  level.
• Best articles are queued for print editions,
  using a content management system.
• Recently added comments, profiles and other
  direct participation (features from
  Bakotopia.com)

http//www.northwestvoice.com/
15
Más Affirmational Media

• A weekly magazine and web site targeted to
  English-speaking Hispanics
• Affirmational media acknowledges something
  thats uniquely a part of you.More of a magazine
  style.
• Has strong traditional media model, with a staff
  of 8!
• Planning to enable user-contributed stories

URL http//www.masbakersfield.com/.
16
And More!

• Southwest Voice
• Like Northwest Voice, but in southwest part of
  city
• NewtoBakersfield.com
• Softer sell than getting new residents to read
  the paper.
• Tehachapi News
• Weekly in nearby mountain town, owned by
  Californian.
• Bakersfield.com
• Very soon, we will inject persona and social
  networking into the fabric of the flagship
  newspaper Web site.
• First Licensee
• Due to launch in June!

17
Bakersfield.com Profiles

• Took over our newspaper sites registration
  system
• Unified metrics let us look across core and new
  products.
• Profiles more coming soon!

18
Whats Our Role?

• Readers / users have more control than ever, but
  media professionals still have a significant role
  to fill
• In a room of disparate voices, who ties it all
  together?
• Who finds the story behind the story?
• Who calls bull when people use their newfound
  citizen journalism power to manipulate and
  deceive?
• MY HOPE We let people communicate more of the
  day to day, human interest. That lets us focus
  more time, energy and money on public service
  journalism.

19
The Money Question

• Primary goal was to use community to build
  audiences. Now we can allow ourselves to reap
  rewards.
• Northwest Voice and Mas print revenue subsidizes
  Bakotopia and technology development.
• Bakomatic saves money -- cheaper (and better)
  than vendors.
• Just launched some experimental sponsorship ads
  on Bakotopia. Will add more to Voice and other
  sites.
• Later this year self-serve, community-based
  advertising. Better for the advertiser, and the
  audience.