Newspaper Websites Getting More Visitors for Longer Periods of Time
CNET had an interesting blurb a couple of days ago about newspaper websites–more people are using them!
"The number of people visiting U.S. newspaper Web sites rose 3.7 percent year over year during the third quarter, even as their print editions reported lower advertising sales.
More than 59 million people, or 37.1 percent of all active Internet users, visited the papers' Web sites during the quarter, up from 56.9 million a year ago, the Newspaper Association said, citing data supplied by Nielsen/NetRatings."
Check out CNET for a longer blurb and more stats .
Startup Weekend: Can an Internet Company Be Built in a Weekend?
Startup Weekend is a project founded by Andrew Hyde, who came up with the idea to connect a "highly motivated group of small business entrepreneurs to build a community and company in a weekend." Basically, Startup Weekend groups together web developers, designers, marketers, and entrepreneurs for a weekend to see what kind of Internet company they can come up with. Groups have a weekend to complete their project from start to finish, which includes deciding on a concept and launching the actual project.
From the various Startup Weekends that have been held throughout the country recently, it seems that the answer to my initial question, "Can an Internet Company be Built in a Weekend?", the answer is yes. Most Some of the Startup Weekends have resulted in the launching of a website. The more important question might be, "Can a viable business be built in a weekend?", to which the answer, judging from the sites launched by Startup Weekend, is probably no.
Here's a list of some of Startup Weekend's results:
VoSnap -Boulder team
Favoreats -NYC team
TipDish -Houston team
ScrollTalk -West Lafayette team
DeskHappy -Boston Team
Hola Neighbor -DC team
WorkPerch -Chapel Hill team
These websites range from confusing without a clear purpose (TipDish and ScrollTalk) to founded on good ideas, but lacking in capabilities (HolaNeighbor), to just plain bizarre (DeskHappy).
Continue reading “Startup Weekend: Can an Internet Company Be Built in a Weekend?” »
It’s all in a Name: 4 Hour Work Week
I'm at the New New Web conference in Reston and just listened to Tim Ferriss of 4 Hour Work Week fame speak during our chicken lunch. His whole pitch is worth listening to but I was particularly interested in an anecdote he gave about how he came up with the name of his book.
4 Hour Work Week was originally titled "Dealing Drugs for Fun and Profit." For a variety of reasons this wasn't going to fly with publishers or retailers.
Ferriss and his team came up with twelve alternative names and were pretty much deadlocked.
Ferriss decided on the name by running a Google Adwords campaign. He bought ads for relevant keywords for all twelve potential book titles and tracked which titles performed the best. The clickthrough rate for 4 Hour Work Week was by far the highest, so that is what his book is called.
I think this is a smart and novel approach to naming. Google Adwords as a cheap and real time focus group.
IHT Shares Thoughts on Visitor Comments
Michael Cosentino over at the International Herald Tribune's Developer Blog shares some of his thoughts about comment sections on news sites – a topic that we cover in our newspaper study. In his post titled "How are visitors using comments?" he shares some of the issues that he and his team have mulled over as they upgrade the comment section on their site.
His post focuses on three main points that are crucial to successful comment sections: location, topic selection, and lead-off questions.
I personally liked his discussion of the editorial side of managing comments. On one hand his site wants to present topics that many site visitors would have something to contribute, but just because people would talk about the latest exploits of a celebrity, that doesn't make it suitable for every news site. On the other hand, a site shouldn't select topics that are so esoteric — like seventh century underwater basket weaving — that most of the visitors would have nothing, nor desire, to say. Editorial decisions must achieve an interesting balance.
Granted, what works for the IHT will not work for other news sites, but this post is valuable since Cosentino shares several factors to consider when designing community features of a site.
Hat Tip: Kevin Anderson at Strange Attractor
news.bbc.co.uk Turns 10 This Week
Here at The Bivings Group we like news and Internet sites. A news site interests us even more.
The Internet and news sites have changed a lot over the last 10 years, and that's why it is fun to wish the site for BBC News — of the most well known – a happy tenth birthday this week.
The Beeb is celebrating as well. Check out its news stories about its first 10 years — it even has pictures of how the homepage looked during major news events.