Generating Site Stickiness with RSS, podcasts, webcasts, video and more

1
Generating Site Stickiness with RSS, podcasts,
webcasts, video and more
Online Tools

• ABM's Publishers' Summit
• September 27, 2007

2
Hi! Im Paul
I am not an expert.
(but I am a pretty smart guy!)
3
Questions For You

• How many have magazines that are requested or
  paid for?
• How many publish letters to the editor?
• How many host conferences or trade shows?
• How many host executive or reader forums?

4
Community Trust

• Then you have already been building a community
  of people with similar interests.
• You have already built trust with your community

5
Trust

• Trust is the lubricant that makes commerce
  work.
• Gord Hotchkiss
• You can leverage that trust in community based
  experience on your site

6
Trust

• Recommended Reading
• The SPEED of Trust The One Thing that Changes
  Everything
• by Stephen M.R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill, and
  Stephen R. Covey

7
Questions For You

• How many have RSS feeds?
• How many have forums?
• How many broadcast online video, audio, etc?
• How many have a blog?

8

• "In a time of drastic change it is the learners
  who inherit the future. The learned usually find
  themselves equipped to live in a world that no
  longer exists."
• Eric Hoffer (American Writer, 1902-1983)

9
Its All About The User
10
Its All About The User

• What do users want?
• What will keep users coming back?
• What will keep them on our sites longer?

11
Users Are Social

• Our users are inherently social creatures
• They have social networks
• Personal
• Professional
• They utilize many different methods of
  communication across those networks

12
Users Are Opinionated

• They have a point of view and want to share it
• They have knowledge and expertise and want to
  show it

13
Users Are An Untapped Resource

• Most readers know more than we do
• At best our editors are generalists or experts in
  one area
• Readers collectively are experts in many areas.
• Willing and even motivated to share their
  opinions and expertise
• Everyone benefits
• Editors learn and so do our readers
• Collective intelligence

14
Users Want Control

• Users want
• what they want,
• when they want it,
• where they want it
• in the way they want.

15
User Enabling Technology

• Technology has enabled users to
• To be social
• To share
• Content
• Expertise
• Opinion
• To interact
• To control how they consume content

16
Opportunity

• Serve our users beyond just the delivery of
  articles
• To keep users coming back and staying longer
• Serve these need in a cost effective way
• And maybe make some money doing it

17
Web 2.0
18
Web 2.0

• Term coined by Dale Dougherty and popularized by
  OReilly Media and MediaLive International

19
Web 2.0

• What it isnt
• The next generation of the Internet
• Something only expensive technology can do

20
Web 2.0

• What it is
• In Web 2.0, the user is at the core, in control
  of the many new options available to serve
  his/her needs, but also much more accessible to
  publishers than ever before.
• Outsell, Web 2.0 Health Test for B2B Publishers,
  July 12, 2007

21
Web 2.0

• Not necessarily new concept
• Internet from its very beginning was about
  connect people across a network to share
  information
• It created a bridge across geography and time

22
Web 2.0

• Before the browser
• Bulletin boards
• E-mail
• Usenet

23
Web 2.0

• Dynamic between reader and publication is
  evolving.
• Past A mostly passive audience reading what we
  write
• Today An active audience commenting and adding
  their own opinions

24
Web 2.0

• Move from a one-way communication to a to-way
  conversation
• Editors evolve to moderators of a discussion
  rather than just authors of an article

25
Web 2.0 New Publishing Paradigm

• Need a new world view of role of B2B publishing

26
Web 2.0 Tools

• RSS
• Video, Pod Webcasts
• Forums
• Blogs

27
RSS
28
Who Knows RSS?

• Very few Internet users
• RSS is still not known among the general public
• Poor branding awareness

29
Who Knows RSS?

• Acronym
• Really Simple Syndication
• Rich Site Summary

30
RSS Reality or Myth

• Confusing and conflicting statistics
• Forrester Research - just 2 percent of online
  U.S. households use RSS
• JupiterResearch - 12 percent adoption rate
• Pew - reported 9 percent

31
RSS Reality or Myth

• Closer to reality
• Yahoo! and Ipsos Insight found that 31 percent of
  online users use RSS
• But 27 dont know they are using RSS
• Appears as content on personalized start pages
  (e.g., My Yahoo!, My MSN, iGoogle) without an RSS
  logo.

32
RSS Reality or Myth

• We dont talk about getting html anymore it just
  happens on our browser
• SMTP me and I will SMTP you back
• Just like the acronym RSS, most users dont know
  SMTP but they know their e-mail.

33
RSS Popularity Growing
34
RSS Popularity Growing

• Growing fast among publishers
• RSS allows for the simplest delivery of content
  to
• Web sites
• Aggregators
• Web Devices
• Becoming the default delivery method for
  subscribe-able content

35
Expands Reach Beyond Traditional Users

• Viral growth
• Can appear on hundreds of sites
• Drive traffic to your site when users from those
  sites click on stories

36
RSS Popularity Growing

• Growing fast among users
• RSS allows for the simplest receipt of content
• Doesnt fill their Inbox
• Not SPAM
• Viable alternative to e-newsletters
• Web Devices such as PDA, cell phone, Internet
  devices
• Mobile predicted to be the next breakout
  environment for RSS

37
RSS Popularity Growing

• Growing fast among users
• Keep their finger on the pulse of their industry
• RSS can deliver
• News alerts
• Upcoming events
• New articles
• New tools resources
• Search results
• Revisions to technical documents
• Project management activities
• Blog posts
• Etc.

38
RSS Popularity Growing

• Growing fast among users
• Provides access to what they want, where they
  want, when they want in the device they want

39
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• RSS is device agnostic

40
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Finding your headlines on other sites

41
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Web based aggregators are the most popular

42
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• MyYahoo!
• iGoogle

43
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Growing number of feed/news readers accessing RSS

44
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Google has its own reader

45
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Growing number of browser access direct
• IE7, Firefox Apples Safari are RSS optimized

46
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Vista supports RSS
• Part of infrastructure
• Gadgets

47
How Users Are Receiving RSS

• Even as a screen saver

48
Video, Pod Webcasts
49
Podcasts

• Term Podcasting (combination of iPod and
  broadcasting emerged in 2004

50
Podcast Usage

• By 2005
• 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3
  players
• 29 of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web
  so that they could listen to audio files at a
  time of their choosing.
• More than 6 million adults
• Pew Internet American Life Project April 2005
  Study

51
Podcast Usage

• Joint research study conducted by Knowledge Storm
  and Universal McCann, June 2006
• 3,900 business and IT professionals
• 50 of respondents had listened to a podcast at
  least once 13 being frequent listeners
• 32 of those who had listened to a podcast more
  than once, found that their usage had increased
  or significantly increased over the last six
  months
• 68 had done so on their computers rather than by
  using a portable music player
• Of of those who had never listened to a podcast
• 50 said that this was because they didnt own a
  portable device
• 64 said they didnt know enough about podcasts,

52
Webcast Usage

• 72 of business execs agree that Webcasts are a
  convenient way to learn something new about
  their industry
• Harris Interactive, 2006

53
Podcasts Webcasts

• Simple production process
• Good digital voice recorder
• Developer that can work in Flash
• Good narrator/reporter(s)

54
Podcasts Webcasts

• Single person newscast
• Interviews
• Panel discussions

55
Podcasts

• Distribute via
• Distribute on site via Flash audio player
• Download an MP3

56
Podcasts

• Distribute via
• RSS

57
Video

• 57 of internet users have watched videos online
  and most of them share what they find with others
• Pew Internet American Life Project, July 25,
  2007

58
Video

• 63, or 114 million Internet users watch online
  videos on a monthly basis
• Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer ABM Publisher Conference
  May, 2007

59
Video
63
60
Video

• More involved production process
• Production Technology
• High quality digital video camera - 2,500
• Adobe Premier - 799
• Distribution Technology
• Vendors
• Flash Player on your site
• Downloadable MP4

61
Video
62
Video

• Incorporate YouTube video

63
Forums
64
Forums

• Originated from bulletin boards and Usenet
• Threads, the topic of the conversation similar to
  newsgroups,

65
Forums

• Users want to be involved in professional
  networks and discussions
• Forums provide an environment to
• Ask questions
• Offer opinion
• Discuss issues

66
Forums

• All industries have opinions
• Even users involved with moving railcars

67
Forums

• Realities
• Most users are their to read, only a small
  percentage will actually contribute
• Challenges
• Using in-house editorial and technical staff to
  populate the site with content before launch
• Launch in beta with little or no advertising
• Use e-mail newsletters to encourage users to
  visit and contribute

68
Forums
69
Forums
70
Forums

• Launched January 2007
• Grown to 20,000 user sessions per month
• Almost 3,000 posts

71
Blogs
72
Blogs

• What is a blog?
• A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website
  where entries are written in chronological order
  and commonly displayed in reverse chronological
  order
• Wikipedia

73
Blogs

• What is a blog?
• Blogs are our opinions pages with letters to the
  editors on steroids.
• Paul Gerbino

74
Blogs

• What is a blog?
• Interactive
• Users make comments to posts by author
• Fastest growing Internet model

75
Blogging
76
Blogging

• Launched January, 2005
• 85,000 visits per month
• Over 4,500 comments to stories

77
Blogging

• Start simple, add the ability for readers to
  comment on your stories online

78
Tagging

• 28 of Online Americans Have Used the Internet to
  Tag Content
• Pew Internet and American Life Project, January
  31, 2007
• advances and personalizes online searching

79
Online Tools

• We are in a user-centric environment more now
  than ever
• The user need to feel in control
• Web 2.0 type tools can help
• RSS
• Video, Pod Webcasts
• Forums
• Blogs
• And if you dont, your users may migrate
  somewhere else

80
Thank You