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RJI Futures LabTyler Fine
Jake GodinTeddy Nykiel
Chelsea Stuart
Convergence capstone studentsFall 2013
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction to the Futures Lab......................................................................................3
II. Semester Accomplishments.........................................................................................5
III. Preliminary Research................................................................................................13
IV. Research Questions..................................................................................................15
V. Research Methods.....................................................................................................17
VI. Audience Research…………………………...............................................................29
VII. Survey…………………………..................................................................................33
VIII. Interviews……………………...................................................................................36
IX. Recommendations…………………...........................................................................37
X. Appendix….................................................................................................................38
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I. Introduction
The Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI) Futures Lab is a digital show focused on
highlighting innovative trends, technology and practices across platforms in the
journalism industry. Weekly web episodes target an audience of newsroom leaders,
staff, and similar-minded people with an interest in the future of print, digital and mobile
reporting. These episodes cover topics ranging from mobile apps and digital tools, to
crowdsourcing and event recaps.
The goal of this digital-only news organization is to inform viewers specifically on how
journalism is moving forward, and what that development can be anticipated to look like
in the future. The newsroom budget allows reporters, host and editor to travel across the
state and country for stories. This semester, the team reported from Chicago, New
York, San Francisco, and Atlanta.
The newsroom operates out of its namesake Futures Lab, a home to Missouri School of
Journalism faculty and student body. The lab acts as a real-world testing venue for the
latest in journalistic technology, monetization and management, and routinely hosts
leaders in the media across the nation and globe.
Production CycleProduction for the show routinely follows a Monday through Friday schedule of pitching,
reporting, editing and filming. The weekly episode typically ranges from 2-3 segmented
stories, each approximately three minutes long and lasting a total duration of 8-10
minutes. The show content is often a compilation of Skype or Google Hangout
interviews, still images and videos shot with the SnapzPro program. Less often but
every once in a while, in-person interviews and footage were possible and included
within an episode.
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Every 8 a.m. Wednesday the team met to discuss story ideas and deadlines. Host,
Reuben Stern, filmed the show on Friday in the RJI studio with the production
assistance of RJI Technical Director Travis McMillen. Episode content including anchor
intro and outros, supplementary links and information were completed in advance of the
show recording, and story drafts uploaded to the RJI practice lab YouTube account by
the end of the day Friday at latest. Video editor, Olga Kyle, polished each week’s video
for publication Monday morning.
This semester’s RJI Futures Lab team was composed of four capstone students, three
graduate students, and two faculty members acting as host, editor and mentors. Of the
capstone students, Tyler Fine worked in audience development, Jake Godin worked on
iPad development and research, and Teddy Nykiel and Chelsea Stuart reported
alongside graduate students Laura Davison and Sarah Harkins while the third and final
graduate student, Greg Mantell, built a sources database.
A small team of three reporters and the faculty continued weekly web episode
production throughout the summer until the start of the fall semester. Since then,
episodes 23-39 have been produced. Reporters consistently worked on 2-4 stories per
week, and spent anywhere between 10-20 hours on an episode depending on the
length, subject matter and interviews. Collaboration was common, and each segment
usually edited by 1-2 reporters, host and video editor before it aired on the website and
iPad app. To see a two-minute video highlight of this semester’s stories, follow this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z6sn4TUEhc
Each week prior to the episode launch, the social media or audience development
manager works with the reporting team to coordinate preview updates for the episode
on Twitter and Facebook, if possible. Once the episode has launched, updates are
posted to all social media feeds, and sent out via the RJI Newsletter. Reporters share
the episode link with all relevant sources via email and Twitter. Additionally, after each
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episode launch the social media manager works to update all media outlets with posts
relevant to the most current episode. These updates can include mentions of important
sources and topics within the video, or articles and other media related to the content of
each episode.
The social media/audience development manager also works with reporters and the RJI
Communications team to facilitate partnerships with fellow industry outlets as well as
provide as much audience development and engagement as possible throughout the
week. When the team is traveling covering events social media feeds may also be
updated with live coverage or interaction during the events, such as ONA13.
The editorial mission statement, which was created by the fall 2012 Futures Lab
research capstone group:
“RJI will help newsrooms leaders across the country make their organizations more innovative by providing a weekly video digest of fresh ideas, techniques and developments that can move journalism forward. Our reporting will include:
● Behind-the-scenes case studies of cutting-edge work,● Profiles and interviews with leading innovators,● Tips on integrating new technologies across multiple platforms,● Insights from the latest industry research, and● Management tips for fostering innovation at all levels, in all types and sizes of
newsroom.
This program should be easily viewable across computers and mobile devices. Content should be available for automatic download/delivery, with customizable notification when new content arrives.
Ideally we'll figure out a way to make this social as well, so the intended news industry
audience will be able to share their own expertise and learn from each other, too.”
II. Semester AccomplishmentsA. Reporting
1. High Profile Sources: We were able to secure several top-level sources from well-
known companies. For example, in episode 36, we interviewed Major Garrett, the CBS
White House Correspondent; in episode 27, we talked to Rob Barrett, the VP of News
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and Finance at Yahoo!; in episode 38, we interviewed Mary Hockaday, head of the BBC
Multimedia Newsroom and Michael Golden, The New York Times Company Vice
Chairman.
(Relevant Episodes: 27, 36, 38.)
2. In-person Interviews: The spring 2013 capstone group’s first recommendation was
to have more in-person reporting in stories. We were able to do this largely because
many RJI events brought various journalism professionals to campus. We were able to
take advantage of this at the Five Years Past/Five Years Forward event and the
Journalytics Summit in September. Our team also took reporting trips to New York,
Chicago and San Francisco to gather interviews and b-roll. Finally, we took advantage
of opportunities to conduct interviews locally at the Columbia Tribune and the Columbia
Missourian.
(Relevant Episodes: 27, 30, 35.)
3. Stories about mobile: The spring 2013 capstone group’s sixth recommendation was
to emphasize stories about mobile. We addressed mobile journalism in at least three
episodes this semester. We’ve addressed tips for reporting on mobile, mobile app tools,
analytics on mobile and mobile revenue models.
(Relevant Episodes: 31, 34, 35, 37.)
4. Themed Episodes: Early in the semester, our reporting team made it a goal to
produce themed episodes rather than episodes with three random stories. For example,
we dedicated episode 35 to talking about ways to use analytics in the newsroom where
we featured three individual stories all about analytics.
(Relevant Episodes: 35, 37.)
Futures Lab Fall Highlight Reel: http://youtu.be/6Z6sn4TUEhc
B. Audience Development
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To develop and grow the RJI Futures Lab’s audience, we began by researching the
different techniques and trends in audience development and engagement. Because
our intended audience is news leaders and industry professionals, we researched
search engine optimization and meta data trends to determine the best ways to reach
our audience.
1. Social MediaWhen the semester began, we had roughly 98 Twitter followers,120 Facebook likes and
29 YouTube subscribers. Our social media feeds typically only featured one update per
week announcing the release of the most recent episode.
Our first steps in increasing audience engagement were to update our social media
pages with the latest information and images. We revamped our YouTube page by
adding new descriptions, a channel trailer, and new playlists to make our page more
dynamic and interesting for our viewers. We also searched and followed nearly 1,000
new professional Twitter accounts, direct messaging some to alert them of our show.
We began tweeting multiple times a week, using hashtags that were deemed popular
among journalists and newsrooms. We began mentioning and following each source we
used in our videos as well in an effort to build not only a stronger audience, but a
stronger relationship with our sources. We also began updating our Facebook page with
new information and supplementary articles and content every week to go along with
our videos. These efforts were based on my preliminary research, as well as the trends
I saw in our peers and competitor websites.
We worked to have a more active presence during industry events such as the ONA
2013 conference. Some of the RJI Futures Lab team attended the conference and
introduced new people to our show and social media feeds. We kept up with conference
from home and tried to frequently tweet live updates and information from the
conference as well.
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During this time we saw the largest increase in our social engagement. Through these
efforts, we began to see an overall upward trend in engagement. Our Twitter following
more than quadrupled, our YouTube subscribers nearly doubled, and we saw an
increase in likes and engagement on Facebook.
2. Partnerships/EngagementIn addition to social media work, we also sought to increase our presence in the RJI
Newsletter, partnered with ASNE to be a part of their newsletter, and worked on a
symbiotic relationship with PBS Mediashift to continue to increase our reach and
engage with new audiences. As a team we sought to share, retweet, and post videos
and updates from the show on our own personal feeds. Whereas we had little to no
engagement on the show’s social media at the beginning of the year, we are now
regularly engaged with our audience.
Through this semester’s work, we saw a general increase in our engagement numbers
over the course of the semester.
Of our top 10 viewed videos on YouTube, 3 out of the 10 came from the last two
months.
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Our subscribers not only increased in number but in frequency over the course of the
semester. -
Besides two large spikes in the beginning run of the show (which were a result of two
episodes being picked up by larger organizations), the show saw an increase in regular
YouTube viewership over from August into December.‘
Again eliminating the two outlier episodes, the videos produced from August to
December also saw larger spikes in viewership within the first few days of release. We
believe this may be due to active social media promotion before and immediately
following each episode’s release.
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On the RJI Futures Lab landing page we saw an increase from August to December, as
well as a gradual increase from previous semesters.
Again eliminating the outlier episodes, looking at our YouTube view totals, as
well as views of each episode page on the RJI site, we can see an upward trend in
views throughout the semester.
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We determined this data from YouTube and Google Analytics, as well as our own
personal data recordings from each episode. This data has proven helpful not only in
measuring our audience numbers but in determining which episodes and topics gained
the most attention as well.
C. Professional OpinionsWe had the opportunity to have private meeting with two industry professionals,
Elizabeth Osder and Brian Stelter, to talk about our show and get feedback from them
about how to improve. Here’s what they had to say:
1. Elizabeth OsderWe met with media consultant Elizabeth Osder (http://www.osder.com/) to get a
professional opinion about how to improve our show and our audience. She pointed out
that our target audience should not necessarily be top-tier newsrooms like the NYT, but
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rather smaller newsrooms that are struggling to keep up with the digital revolution. She
also specified that within news organizations, we should be targeting the top decision
makers and newsleaders because those are the people that have the power to make
innovative changes.
More of Osder’s suggestions included:
Starting a “Tech Talk” segment of the show to highlight technology and gadgets
relevant to people in the news industry.
Including broadcast-style stand-ups with a reporting talking through bits of news.
Osder said this could add variety in been the story packages we currently use.
Buying ads on Poynter, Digiday or TechCrunch.
Adding components of audience involvement - a question for viewers, reading
feedback from the audience on last week’s episode or giving tips like, “3 things to
try in your newsroom this week.”
Osder succinctly summarized what each Futures Lab story should address, and we
have adapted this phrasing to include in our Futures Lab Handbook so that reporters in
the coming semesters can use this targeted approach to storytelling:
1. Show me something interesting
2. How is it being used?
3. Why is journalism better for it?
2. Brian Stelter Approximately a week before Brian Stelter left his position as media reporter for The
New York Times and joined CNN Worldwide as a senior media correspondent and host
of “Reliable Sources”, he met and spoke exclusively with the RJI Futures Lab reporting
team.
Stelter’s takeaway lesson was, “News should be both serious and fun,” as he explained
to us how we can strategically work to set our newsroom apart from and ahead of our
competition. We collectively brainstormed differentiation from narrowing our story topics
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and breaking through public relation walls, to potential roundup segments. Stelter also
shared some advice about developing long-term story sources. Finally, he told us about
some of his hopes for the future of journalism, like an app that would deliver local
newspapers to your phone based on your location. The opportunity to meet with Stetler
was a chance to learn more about the media industry individually and as a team in our
endeavors with the Futures Lab.
III. Preliminary ResearchSince the Futures Lab was already up and running before we came in as capstone
students this semester, we began with preliminary research to take stock of what has
been done before us. Prior to this semester, there have been two other studies about
the RJI Futures Lab – one in 2012 and one in spring 2013. From reading through the
two previous final reports, we learned the following:
A. Our Competitors: - American Journalism Review
-The Online Journalism Review
-Editor & Publisher
- Neiman Journalism Lab and Neiman Report
- PBS Media Shift
- Media Bistro Morning media news feed
- Media Bistro's 10,000 words
- The Next Web
- All Things D
- Poynter Media Wire
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B. Our Market:The 2012 study surveyed the Missouri Press Association, Missouri Mafia and the
Missouri Broadcast Associations to find out information about the market. The majority
of respondents were from small newspaper newsrooms. Based on this study, we know
that our market is open because there is not one single competitor that our market goes
to get news about journalism innovation. Our market is divided about what kind of topics
they want to hear about and most of our market prefers to consume information during
the day while at their office. They also prefer to see the information on their computer.
The respondents said they don’t regularly watch videos online and they are more likely
to read printed publication.
C. Audience Reactions:The spring 2013 group conducted a focus group as part of their study where they
hosted a group of editors from public radio, a daily newspaper and the magazine
industry. They asked the editors questions about their impressions of Episode 4. The
participants liked the video format, but said they wished individual episodes could be
watched and shared. They thought the video quality was good and said 10-minute time
was good, because anything in the double-digits risks losing viewers. Most people said
they found the show from emails sent out by RJI and also said they were mostly likely to
watch on their work computers. For the most part, participants varied in their answers
about what kind of content they liked and want to see more of.
D. Website Analytics (March 20-May 12, 2013):
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The web analytics performed by the spring 2013 Futures Lab capstone group showed a
few things. First off, users weren’t watching entire videos. Instead, only 50-60% of each
video was being watched. The group suggested that this could be due to viewers
skipping around each video and that each video could be better off split into smaller
chunks.
The next observation by the group was that Futures Lab’s most engaged viewers came
through direct links (email newsletter, email from a friend). From this, they suggested
that the email newsletter was one of the most effective ways to reach users.
The final website-analytic-based observation by the group was that users coming to the
site to watch Futures Lab are exploring other RJI-produced content as well.
E. Social MediaThe social media analytics observed by the previous capstone group looked at stats
concerning Futures Lab’s Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook accounts. The Twitter
account at the time of the groups report was at 54 followers and was following 97
accounts. The group’s suggestion for improving this was being more consistent/frequent
with tweets and including company or peoples’ Twitter handles in the episodes. The
Facebook account had 114 likes, with the majority of those being people ages 18-24
and 59.3% female. The YouTube views, however, were 38.7% between the ages of 55
and 64 and 63.9% male. Facebook was only responsible for 2% of the views for the
show.
IV. Research QuestionsAfter looking at what the previous two groups learned about the show, we identified
gaps in our knowledge that could be filled through original research and created a
hypothesis: Viewership of the RJI Futures Lab can be improved.
In order to determine the best way to improve and grow the show, we came up with
specific questions we needed to answer based on the gaps in our knowledge. We
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categorized our questions into three areas: reporting, the iPad app and audience
development.
A. Reporting: - What problems and issues are newsrooms facing that our show can help them
solve through our show?
- What type of stories have we done the most of in the past?
- Who are our sources and what other sources should we reach out to?
B. Audience Development: - Which topics and trends are the most popular and most appealing to news
leaders and how can we actively use those topics/trends to attract news
leaders?
- Which outreach methods (social media, email, etc.) are most attractive or
accessible to news leaders? How are our competitors using these methods
effectively?
- Which groups or organizations are news leaders involved in? And how can we
utilize those groups or organizations to effectively market to our audience?
C. Futures Lab App:- What can we do to improve our app in terms of:
a. Usability
b. Innovation
c. Outreach
V. Research MethodsAfter identifying our research questions, we decided the best way to answer them
was through a combination of content and market analysis, an online survey and
individual interviews.
A. Content Analysis
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1. Story Sources:In Episodes 1-31, we had 141 total sources. Nine sources were featured in two different
episodes, so in the first 31 episodes, we interviewed 132 different people. Of these
132 total sources, 89 are male and 43 are female.
Geographically, our sources come from 22 states, Washington D.C and six countries:
the U.S., Canada, UK, Kenya, Belgium and the Netherlands. The most common states
that sources are from are Missouri, California and New York.
*For the full list of our sources, their organizations, positions, gender and location, see the Appendix.
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Story Topics: We categorized 37 episodes into 11 categories: Event, Newsroom Profile, Trending
Topic, Digital Tool, Management, Social Media, Apps, Tablet/Mobile, Crowdsourcing,
Monetization, Second Screen.
From those 11 categories, we further narrowed them down into seven areas of
innovative journalism to poll in our survey. We asked survey participants to tell us which
of the seven areas they were interested in learning about the most. The categories
entailed: Social Media, Event Recaps, Trends in Journalism, Digital or Media Tools,
Newsroom Management, Crowdsourcing, Other.
The first graph below represents the data collected from survey participants. From left to
right across the chart, the survey results are compiled by highest to lowest interest level:
Trends in Journalism 68.1%, Social Media: 65.2%, Digital or Media Tools 63.8%,
Crowdsourcing 50.7%, Newsroom Management 31.9%, Event Recaps 15.9%, Other
8.7%.
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Once we broke down our original 11 categories to fit within the 7 trends*, we reviewed
every episode to see how our survey poll results compare to what we have actually
reported on. Story topics organized exactly the same from left to right, here is how our
graph of story topics covered in 37 episodes differed:
- Trends in Journalism 13%
- Social Media: 11%
- Digital or Media Tools 51%
- Crowdsourcing 19%
- Newsroom Management 59%
- Event Recaps 12%
- Other 56%
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A data analysis tells us that altogether the past and current semester reporting teams
have done well in covering topics relating to digital or media tools, but two out of the top
three topics are not receiving enough coverage. Based upon the survey data collected,
we believe that the addition of a mobile/tablet apps category to the survey would have
provided us with correlating feedback competitive with the top response results. A write-
in section was included alongside “other” in which a variety and majority of tablet and/or
mobile topic responses were recorded. 40 percent of our actual reporting included
topics categorized under that umbrella.
*How the content analysis data was collected:
# of times topic appeared in episode Total % topic appears(#/37)SOCIAL MEDIA
4 11%EVENT RECAPSEvent 4 12%TRENDS IN JOURNALISMSecond Screen 2 5%Trending Topic 3 8%DIGITAL OR MEDIA TOOLSDigital Tool 19 51%
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NEWSROOM MANAGEMENTNewsroom Profile 13 35%Management 9 24%CROWDSOURCING Crowdsourcing 7 19%OTHERApps 9 24%Tablet/Mobile 6 16%Monetization 6 16%
Comparison of iPad app platforms/magazines:This semester we worked on two primary objectives concerning the iPad app.
The first one was finding the best way to publish our Futures Lab app that would give a
good experience to the end user but also provide RJI with an easy and transferable
weekly workflow. The second was creating an RJI Apple Developer Account to replace
the one we are currently using, which belongs to Olga Kyle.
Obejective I - App Publishing Platform:For the first objective, I looked at multiple app publishing platform alternatives to what
we use now, CoverPage. Many app publishing platforms are geared towards magazine
publications that want to go digital with their issues and expect their users to utilize
InDesign files that they publish their physical publications with (WoodWing, Mag+, App
Studio, etc…).
RJI’s Futures Lab app is more of a video magazine and completely digital, and therefore
doesn’t quite fit into expected parameters for many of these publishing platforms. We
don’t have InDesign or image files that are tied to any physically distributed copy of our
publication so every week we create or edit existing design files to fit the show. It is in
this way that we utilize CoverPage by uploading an image file constructed in Apple’s
Keynote presentation software.
App Platforms:
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PrssPrss is a web-based app publishing platform that uses a CMS-like client to handle
design files within the app. The platform supports embedded video and linked video.
Both hosting and distribution are handled by Prss.
MagPlus (Mag+)Mag+ is an InDesign-based app publishing platform that uses an add-on client for
InDesign to handle design files. The platform supports both embedded and linked video.
Hosting can either be provided by the customer or by Mag+ for three different tiers of
fees.
Adobe Digital Publishing Suite (DPS)Adobe DPS is a InDesign-based app publishing platform that uses InDesign to handle
design files. There are three tiers available - Single, Professional, and Enterprise. All
tiers support both embedded and linked video. Hosting is handled through Adobe,
though in the Single tier, only one app is publishable one time. Professional and
Enterprise editions add distribution capabilities.
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CoverPageCoverPage is what we currently use. It can either use image, PDF or InDesign files for
designing the document. There are three tiers available - Premium, Single, and
Unlimited. All tiers support both embedded and linked video formats. Hosting is handled
by CoverPage through Amazon S3 servers, but can be done through the customers as
well.
WoodWingWoodWing is an InDesign-based app publishing platform that uses InDesign with a
WoodWing Digital Publishing Tools addon and a Content Station program to manage
the publication’s design files. Videos can be embedded or linked within publications.
Distribution is handled by Adobe’s DPS.
App StudioApp Studio is a cloud-based app publishing platform that can utilize either InDesign or
QuarkXPress files. There are four tiers: Single, Multi-Issue Pro, Multi-Issue Premium
and Enterprise. All tiers support both embeddable and linked videos. Hosting is
provided by App Studio and customers can self-host under the Enterprise tier. Single
addition is only one app with one issue and is therefore not useful.
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AppMachineAppMachine is software company that provides tools to build custom apps from the
ground up using a mostly web-based CMS system. There are three tiers, Gorgeous,
Designer and Developer (which is currently not available). All tiers support embeddable
and linked videos. The content is hosted by Amazon. One caveat with AppMachine is
although it supports iPad distribution, the interface for apps on the iPad are simply
resized versions of the iPhone interface and don’t quite support the full resolution.
Workflow:Our current workflow is based around one person working on both the design and
distribution of the Futures Lab app. Olga has fulfilled this position so far, but also has
the task of editing the Futures Lab Update videos and various other duties as an
Adjunct Faculty member. Alternative workflows would include introducing a work
position dedicated to fulfilling the obligations required of creating the weekly Futures
Lab app.
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Current Workflow: Olga’s current workflow with CoverPage takes place over two days starting as soon as
the most recent video has been produced, which is on the Monday of every week. She
begins by dividing the episode into multiple parts to embed within the app. She then
compresses the files. Then, using 2048px x 1536px Keynote design files, Olga prepares
the layout. This includes adding text, links and photos. Once the sections are finished in
Keynote, they are exported to CoverPage to have the links activated to them through
the CoverPage application and to have the compressed videos embedded. The app is
then published Tuesday morning.
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Friday: 1. Futures Lab Update episode is filmed
Monday:1. Futures Lab Update episode is finished2. Episode is divided into segments for app by Olga3. Add graphics bumpers, create still frames for videos4. Parts need to be exported/compressed.5. Build PDFs or PNGs (currently using Keynote to build pages)6. Put text in, links, photos7. Import to CoverPage and embed videos8. Create navigation and activate external links 9. Enter Publishing parameters
Tuesday:1. Publish the app
CoverPage tutorial videos can be found here: http://www.coverpageapp.com/en/support/videos
Alternative Workflows:
Prss:An alternative workflow using Prss would cut out the need to use Keynote for creating
sections. Instead, sections would be based off of templates created in the Prss web-
client that can be reused. The client also allows for text, video, navigation links, and
photos to be inserted without having to use Keynote. Once finished, users can publish
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both retina and non-retina versions through the web-client.
Prss tutorial videos can be found here: http://vimeo.com/77676710
Mag+Mag+ is currently being used by VOX magazine, another MU newsroom. The workflow
for VOX is spread out over a five day period from Sunday to Thursday and works in
tandem with their print production cycle by utilizing their InDesign files from the print
publication. Futures Lab, being a digital-only publication, is not afforded the opportunity
to reuse and instead must create/edit new design files every week. Using Mag+ would
require our designer to use InDesign with the Mag+ addon in order to create our
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Futures Lab app sections.
Mag+ tutorial videos can be found here: http://www.magplus.com/playlist/tutorials/
Suggested improvements for the app to implement:Below are some suggested improvements for the app in general, regardless of what
platform we ultimately decide to publish with. These are elements that other publications
have exhibited.
Instruction Page:Our current instruction page is simply a page with text explaining what the user is to do
in order to navigate the app. I suggest replacing this page with a page that instead has
graphics signifying what to do in order to navigate the app. This will be specific to
whatever app publishing platform we end up using, but below is a mock-up for what one
would look like for our current app using CoverPage’s platform.
Social Media sharing for individual content:One of the most requested features for folks in the last
Currently, our only option for social media within the app is located at the end with
buttons that lead to our RJI Futures Lab Twitter and Facebook accounts. Allowing users
to tweet out video links or share them to Facebook would allow for more opportunities to
get views. For tweeting video links, we would essentially link the different start times for
the video since it’s not cut into separate chunks on YouTube.
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Creating share-able links for CoverPage (since it doesn’t support it).1. Create bit.ly link of episode: https://bitly.com/
2. Create shareable link with ClickToTweet: http://clicktotweet.com/home?
clicktotweettabs=1
3. Specify preset tweet and insert into CoverPage workflow in appropriate spots.
Objective II - RJI Apple Developer Account:
Apple Developer Account program optionsIndividual account (for personal apps)Company account (for branded/company apps)Enterprise account (for in-house company apps)University account (for classrooms)
RJI Apple Developer Account creation
Information:
Email Account (Login here)Username: UMC-USERS\[email protected] Password: pl4tF0rmz
Developer Account (Login here)Username: [email protected] Password: pl4tF0rmz
Steps:- Begin registration: https://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/- Obtain D-U-N-S number- Go through financial supervisor/legal advisor to secure legal authority to create apps for the company.
VI. Audience ResearchPreliminary Research: Search Engine Algorithms and Social MediaBefore creating an audience development plan, I did preliminary research into the best
audience development methodology. The research regarding audience development
techniques is varied and constantly changing. Because digital audience development,
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especially regarding SEO and meta data marketing techniques, is still new and growing
there are not many definitive scholarly texts regarding the issue. Google’s search
algorithms alone have changed nearly 15 times in the past year*, each time changing
the basic data which the search engine indexes.
We decided to focus on Google’s algorithms because according to comScore’s qSearch
statistics, Google’s search requests made up roughly 65.2% of the search engine
market in 2012*. Google actually has a “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” that
contains several guidelines and tips for general website optimization. While our website
is run through the RJI Communications team, these guidelines can still apply to our
individual pages on the website, our YouTube page, along with our social media feeds.
The basic guidelines that we found to be most useful in helping our intended audience
find our site through Google’s search engine were:
Titles should be short, descriptive, accurate, and unique.
Content should be updated frequently in order to remain higher on result
rankings.
External and internal links to several areas of a site will increase the popularity
and ranking of the site in results.
Utilize multiple keywords for content topics to account for differences in user
search terms.
Overall, RJI covers many of these issues regularly with each post and on the website
itself. However it is important that not only the Communications team, but the Futures
Lab reporting team know these terms as well when posting episodes and updates
across social media.
When looking at social media options, we attempted to determine the best choices for
social engagement by looking at our competitors, as well as polls and surveys of the
general population. Nieman Lab, Poynter, All Things D, Editor & Publisher, and Gigaom
all have active Twitter and Facebook accounts, but all have higher engagement and a
larger follower base on Twitter. While Facebook still has a larger number of users (1.8
30
billion on Facebook compared to 231.7 million on Twitter), trends show that more users
are shifting towards Twitter. In order to gain a greater picture of our intended audiences’
social media usage and preferences, we decided to include questions regarding this
issue in our audience survey.
When looking at our competitors’ social media habits I tried to determine which methods
worked best for not only attracting an audience but also engaging an audience in
discussion. On Twitter, many of our competitor sites do not frequently use hashtags, but
rather links to relevant or interesting information. This is in part because Twitter
changed its algorithm to essentially detect popular terms even when they do not contain
a hashtag. In addition I found that many of our competitors follow numerous journalism
and other industry related sites, and occasionally engage in discussions across these
accounts. Additionally, retweeting, or being retweeted seems to attract a greater amount
of followers than only posting one’s own content.
This preliminary research served as a guideline for my day-to-day work managing the
social media sites for our show, and after utilizing some of these techniques we saw an
increase in follows and likes, as well as audience engagement and interaction with our
feeds.
Data Research: Analyzing Our Current Audience and PopularityThroughout the semester I worked to catalog and analyze data from each of our
previous and current episodes in order to gain a greater understanding of our audience
and their tendencies in regards to our show. One of the challenges with our analytics is
that because our videos are sourced through YouTube and embedded onto our site, the
numbers and analytics for each episode can differ from Google site analytics to
YouTube’s analytics. I discovered that at times YouTube does not count or measure
views from the embedded player on our site.
I set up a data spreadsheet to record topics, sources and views for each episode. This
spreadsheet served as a record of the trends in our stories and sources as well as the
popularity of each episode. Our videos averaged roughly 243 views per episode on the
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RJI site, and roughly 171 on our YouTube page. Along with view data, I also looked at
the average length of duration each video was watched and the average length of time
spent on each RJI episode page. On average viewers spent roughly 5.5 minutes on
each episode on the RJI site, and roughly 3 minutes per episode on YouTube. This data
spreadsheet is available in its entirety in the index of this paper.
In addition to video viewing habits, I also looked at the most popular videos. Between
YouTube and the RJI site, the most popular videos had a few common trends. Most of
these videos were slightly shorter in length with an average length of roughly 9 minutes.
Many of these videos centered around similar topics like digital tools and mobile apps
and technology or newsroom profiles and monetization strategies.
Along with view data, I also sought to determine a breakdown of our audience
demographics and their viewing habits. Our YouTube audience is 69 percent male, and
31 percent female, with a majority of viewers (67.1 percent) aged from 45 to 64 years
old. 3.5 percent were aged 18-24 years old, 7.8 percent 24-34 years old, 16.8 percent
35-44 years old, and 2.6 percent 65 or older. Race or ethnicity details are not cataloged
by YouTube analytics and are therefore not included in this report.
For device breakdowns, roughly 84 percent of viewers used a desktop or laptop
computer, 7.4 percent used mobile phones, 5.5 percent used tablets, and 1.5 percent
were labeled as other. Playback locations were split almost evenly between embedded
players and YouTube, with 53 percent coming from embedded players, and 42 percent
from YouTube. Mobile devices and other viewers accounted for the remaining 5.9
percent. We are not sure why YouTube is recognizing an embedded player in its
analytics but not in the overall view counts. Research on the topic resulted in mixed
answers, and email requests sent to YouTube officials were not answered.
Demographics on the RJI Futures Lab site were harder to determine because Google
Analytics measures demographics for the entire RJI website, and individual
demographics for the Futures Lab pages could not be determined. In general the RJI
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website has a more even breakdown of gender, with 45.85 percent female and 54.15
percent male. Ages also tend to be younger, with 27.5 percent aged 18-24, 33.5 percent
aged 25-34, 15.5 percent aged 35-44, 12.5 percent aged 45-54, 5.5 percent aged 55-
64, and the remaining 5.5 percent aged 65 and older. However, the Futures Lab views
account for less than 8 percent of the total RJI site’s view counts, so I cannot say with
any certainty that this demographical information holds true for the Futures Lab’s
audience.
Audience Surveys & Interviews with ProfessionalsAlthough preliminary research and data analysis provided some insight into our
audience and audience development, we felt that a survey and interviews or focus
groups with industry professionals would provide a greater view of our intended
audience.
We wanted to learn the social media habits and interests of our intended audience,
such as which social media sites they use most often, and how and when they use
them. I was also interested in learning how our audience currently viewed our videos.
Because there is such a large discrepancy between video length and average view
duration, I was also interested in learning how long our audience would prefer our
videos to be. Other information we could find out through the survey included device
usage and preference, trend and topic interests, and general thoughts on the content
and quality of the show itself.
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/insidesearch/howsearchworks/algorithms.html
http://gigaom.com/2013/02/06/microsoft-down-to-fifth-place-in-comscores-global-
search-stats-thanks-to-yandex/
http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/
search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
VII. SurveyIn order to learn more about our audience we designed a survey that would gauge the
interests and behaviors of our intended audience as would relate to our show. We
sought to learn these interests and behaviors in order to determine how our show
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appeals to our audience’s preferences, and how we can improve the show in order to
align ourselves more with the interests and behaviors of our intended audience.
We sent our survey out to RJI email subscribers, our social media followers, as well as
several media professionals. We received 84 total responses, with 53 participants
completing the entire survey. For complete detailed questions, answers, and participant
responses please refer to the index at the end of this report.
The first three questions of our survey gave us information on who our participants
were. We asked for participants’ gender, age, and occupation. Overall our participants
were nearly equally split between male and female. Age responses ranged from 20
years old to 85 years old, with most participants falling between 20 and 29, or being
over the age of 50. Occupations of our participants were primarily in media fields, such
as editors, publishers, media directors, and journalism students. Originally we planned
to redact student responses, but decided to include them because many of these
students were in the journalism field. Because of the potential for these students to
become future editors and newsroom leaders we believe that their responses may show
the future of industry trends and could be beneficial input for the show.
The second part of the survey was intended to gauge the interests of our participants in
regards to industry news and information. The questions we asked included the areas
and trends of journalism participants were interested in, and what kind of people they
would be interested in hearing from. From these questions we determined that social
media, mobile technology, digital tools, and trends in journalism were the areas that
peaked the most interest. In our questions regarding types of interview subjects,
participants’ answers were evenly spread and therefore led us to believe that
participants would like a wide range of subjects covered.
The third part of the survey was intended to gauge the habits of our participants in
regards to industry news and information. We asked participants which websites, social
media, apps, and devices they preferred to use in order to find out about trends and
34
innovations in the journalism industry. The Poynter Institute’s website and Twitter were
by far the most popular websites for journalism news. Most participants seemed to
prefer using laptop or desktop computers to look for industry news as well as for
watching an 8-10 minute video. However, in regards to social media, more participants
tended to use mobile phones. Regarding mobile phones and tablets, our participants
social media apps were the most common sources for news and information. Most
participants said they had between 0 and 5 paid subscriptions to news apps, and had
between 0 and 10 unpaid subscriptions.
The fourth part of our survey dealt with participant preferences and habits regarding
video viewership. We used the Future Lab’s average video time of 8-10 minutes as a
base reference. We found that participants were most likely to watch an 8-10 minute
video at home before or after work, or on the weekends. When asked what amount of
time participants would prefer to spend watching an online video, a large majority said
they would prefer videos to last five minute or less. However, when asked how long they
would prefer videos that are relevant to their career, participants favored longer video
length of 30 minutes or less.
The fifth part of our survey dealt specifically with the RJI Futures Lab show. We asked
participants whether they had seen the show, and their opinions about the show itself.
Of our total participants, 26 participants had seen the show, of those 20 watched the
entire length of the video. As for participants comments on the show, most were
generally positive, saying the show was informative and well produced. However, some
comments on the show mentioned that it was too long, could be faster paced, or that
anchors seemed a little stiff or stilted on camera.
*See Appendix for complete survey results
VIII. Interviews
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In order to get more specific and in-depth feedback about our show, we decided to
conduct individual interviews to ask journalism professionals about their opinions of our
stories, website and iPad app. We interviewed six journalism-related people individually
on Skype, Google +, in-person and one via email to get feedback about our website’s
usability, story content and format, and iPad app.
We wanted to reach out to a diverse group of people so that we could have a varied
and well-rounded collection of responses and suggestions about the Futures Lab. Our
group collaborated to come up with 10 types of people we wanted to reach out to.
These categories were:
(bolded categories indicate those where we actually conducted an interview with a
professional in that category.)
1. App Professional2. Radio/TV Producer
3. Radio Broadcaster
4. TV Reporter
5. Print/digital editor6. Print/digital reporter7. Entrepreneur
8. Academic9. Competitor (such as Poynter or Neiman Lab)
10. Social Media Editor We sent out more than 30 requests via individual emails before finding the six people
we ended up talking to. Our interview participants were:
- App Professional: Mike Tigas, Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellow, ProPublica
- Print/digital editor: Steve Buttry, Digital Transformation Editor, Digital First
Media
- Print/digital reporter: Jack Craver, Reporter, The Capital Times
- Academic: Dana Chinn, Media Analytics Strategist, USC Annenberg
- Social Media Editor: Chelsea Robinson, Social Media Strategist, Zimmer
Radio & Marketing Group
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- Other: Thomas Offinga, Designer, The Next Web
*See appendix for full transcript of the interviews
IX. Recommendations
1. Increase reporting about social media.According to the results of our, social media is a consistent theme our audience is
interested in. It was the second-most popular (65.2% of respondents) area of innovative
journalism that our respondents said they wanted to hear more about and the third-most
popular trend respondents said they follow in journalism (68.1% of respondents).
Additionally, social media expert was the second-most popular(55.1% of respondents)
answer for the question about what kind of people our respondents are most interested
in hearing from.
Based on the responses from these three survey questions, we’ve concluded that our
audience is very interested in social media and therefore we should focus more
reporting efforts on covering social media. We recommend covering stories such as:
- What are people doing with social media that is new or different?
- What can newsrooms learn from brands about social media?
- What social media platforms are key to a newsroom’s success?
- How can an organization become more personable on Twitter?
2. Make the videos shorter.3. Consider switching to Prss.4. Establish a Futures Lab Position dedication to app design and production.With our current workflow, Olga is doing both video and iPad production.
By creating a dedicated developer position, we can still have Olga work on the app but
also have someone else to help take care the bulk of the work. The position would:
- cut up the episodes into chunks for embedding and compress them
- design the app each week around the new episode
- keep track of app data and seek ways to improve reach
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- seek additional design options to improve our app each week
5. Update website design.Several of our interview participants gave neutral or negative feedback about the
Futures Lab website. Based on their responses, we recommend that the Futures Lab
should have its own tab in the main navigation bar to make it easier to access the
show’s page. Several interview respondents also said they were confused about the
hierarchical difference between RJI and the Futures Lab. To fix this confusion, we
recommend a redesign of the RJI sight to aesthetically differentiate it from the rest of
the RJI site.
6. Improve the show’s branding.
7. There should be a specific social media person on the Futures Lab team.8. Vary the hosts and/or add standup reporters. Many respondents said they get tired of the same host and format of the show. We think
it would be more interesting to feature reporters doing standups and sitting down with
sources. This would create variety in the show and also be beneficial for reporters,
giving them more experience a wider variety of clips.
X. Appendix
Interview Transcripts1. Steve Buttry - Digital Transformation Editor, Digital First Media (11/6/13)
Segments were informative and well produced.
Something that I wondered with each of them there was a vendor -- discussing what their app does for you -- felt a little infomercialistic. If there isn't a financial relationship that should be transparent and made more obvious.
What I felt like i wanted more of were quick how tos.
It's not short -- too long for online features. And there are different topics all together in each episode. It would be better to separate them into relating segments.
2-3 minutes would be better.
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Short preview videos to tease what’s coming?
I want to hear from journalists who are using these technologies. Examples of how real people are using real apps in real newsrooms. Not a spokesperson talking about their app.
Below the video there aren't any more visual elements in the supplementary information.
There should be a video archive tab on the navigation bar.
You have to download each video if you want to watch it. That's really annoying and arrows direct you there but it's not immediately obvious like if there were links.
What is your mission statement exactly? We're here to help you use innovative tools better.
The Twitter presence is definitely part of my awareness on social media.
2. Dana Chinn, Lecturer and Media Analytics Strategics USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism (11/13/13)
Clicked the link shared: The latest video wasn’t there, had to scroll.
Navigation bar and ad is too big.
Shouldn’t have to scroll down so much to access content.
- You want to not have them scroll
- Looking at it on a 13 in laptop
- Want to get the latest/greatest up there at the top.
Not clear on target audience
- Experienced J’s?
- Students?
Too simplistic for those who are experienced?
Too advanced for beginners?
It would be useful for the video to indicate user level
At 8 minutes - Too long.
The same people interested in video editing, also interested in mobile apps?
Be more specific by topic
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Start with target audience, What specifically are you asking them to learn? What’s the
value for them?
Each should have a very specific target
Newsletters that would specify what they are going to learn
Futures Lab always stumbled on accidentally
Subscribe now should be right up there
All calls to action should be at the top
Designate who primary target is, find a way in the newsletter to cultivate them
- Asking for emails can also get name/title/stakeholder status
- Look at list and recruit based upon it
Need to market content better, reach out other than social media
- That’s for the established audience
Short burst videos – Sources are less important than objective of video
- Do you want people to comment on it?
What is the overarching goal?
- Each page should be more specific, call to action better
If it was just to show people new info,
- There are too many competing goals on this page
Not crazy about numbering the updates
- They’re evergreen, why not list by topic?
- If you don’t catch it when it airs then it disappears
- Great archival content – needs better curation
- A search function within the FL videos
How do I find a specific video if it was two months ago?
“View your shopping cart?” what is that? Did I buy something?
Divorce it from the institute in some way if it’s a separate brand
- It should have its own site if that’s the goal
Upcoming events on FL page
- Is that for FL? RJI?
- Confusing definition of the purpose
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What specific functions does the FL have, are they just doing videos or is it other
things? Define.
Who is sponsoring it? Is it funded the same as RJI?
Like the list on the side to catch up on the latest
UsabilityFinding FL video updates page:
Don’t know where to start
Don’t see the word anywhere “Future’s”
- Is it any of the tabs?
If it’s a priority for the institute it should be right up there in that nav bar
Huge logo on site is not the most important part
Ad on the right hand side to find it.
The visual doesn’t say anything- no call to action
- “Click here for the latest” – instead is a static ad, people stop seeing it
Plus it’s competing against a huge carousel thing
If you want someone to click on something, ask them to!
Contact info
I would go to people on the institute nav bar, sent to RJI staff
Above the scroll, just seeing icons for the institute overall, are they Futures’ Lab?
What’s RJI what’s FL?
Click on RJI Youtube, is it the same?
That needs to go wherever the app thing is, put them all togethether.
- They’re all calls to action, calling for subscriptions. Ongoing connections should
all be together
AppThe app is only for iPhone – bad
Can’t assume have iphone and ipad, NEED android
Sends a message if you’re not inclusive
Need to add Windows phone, mobile is growing. Needs to capture everybody especially
if news
Futures app ad: Bad image of the host, doesn’t tell anything.
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Innovation journalism about what?
Don’t like the word innovation
Futures is fine
3. Chelsea Robinson, Social Media Strategist, Zimmer Radio & Marketing Group
What did you think of the format and quality of the video?It was good, I mean it looks professional and everything. The host seems a little weird…
I don’t know…it’s almost like it’s a little too polished. He starts to get uhm boring? I don’t
know…I want more energy. I’m not drawn in right away, I don’t really care what he’s
saying I guess? It’s very scripted, and doesn’t seem natural. But the quality is good, it
looks professional…except the parts with the computer video, I don’t really understand
why it isn’t just a full screen…
It’s to indicate that it’s a skype interview.Well…I guess I get that, but still, I don’t think anyone cares. It just looks weird, sorry.
What about the content?It was good, I definitely looked up some of the apps you guys profile in it, but it dragged
on so long. People like short videos. I wanted each little section to be it’s own video so I
could pick and choose what I want to watch. I would probably end up watching the
same amount of video, but I could break it up if I was doing other things…It was just too
much.
So, what did you think of the length?Ha ha, well I guess I skipped ahead on your questions…like I said, way too long. I
research this stuff a lot for our stations, and trends show that people tend to lose
interest after the first minute, and a majority of people won’t watch past five. I can send
you that research if you want. But anyway, too long. Seriously. Unless it’s something
hilarious or something heartbreaking, I’m not spending ten minutes watching an
informational video. Is that bad to say?
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Not if it’s your opinion…Ha, okay well back to the host, I mean, he’s kind of dull. If he was funny or more…I
don’t know…interesting? Less scripted? That would be way better. I might stick with
watching it longer.
Did you look at the supplementary material below the video?Yeah a little…it’s a lot of text. To be honest at first I thought it was just a transcript of the
video. You might want to indicate that it is supplementary or put pictures in there or
something? If the instructions you sent didn’t tell me to look at it I probably wouldn’t
have bothered.
What about the sources used in the video?They were good. Maybe too long again, but it seems like you’re getting professionals
and experts.
Okay, now we’re going to do the usability test. Could you pull up rjionline.org on your computer and find the Futures Lab Video Updates page? Can you find the contact information and the social media links? Got it. Pretty easy navigation. Why don’t you have a Twitter feed? That’d probably be
better than some little outdated icons…am I skipping ahead again?
A little, if you can just find the most recent episode we can come back to the website layout.Got it. Right there.
How to share the video?Yes. There. Easy.
Can you find the first episode? [takes a few minutes] Okay, there, finally.
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Was anything difficult to find?Nope, not really except that last one. You should do an archive at the side of the page
or something…it’s kind of annoying to go page by page to find episodes. Otherwise
navigation was pretty simple.
Does the website look professional?Yeah, definitely.
Is it easy to use?Yeah, like I said, just the archive thing would be nice.
Okay, now back to your comments, what could be improved? Do you have any criticisms or problems with the site?Well, the Twitter feed on the side would be great. Seriously, people would probably look
through and be more likely to follow you on twitter if you had some tweets going on live.
Also why does your page look just like all the other ones? I don’t really get how the
show is different from RJI or whatever. I think maybe your show should have a different
layout or maybe a whole different website? I mean you could link it to the same site, but
it doesn’t really serve to do anything except serve as a landing page for your videos,
might as well just be only on YouTube you know? Also, I’m sorry, but your logo kind of
sucks. Is this host like some sort of expert? I guess I just don’t really understand why
he’s so much of the focus…especially if it’s students doing the reporting and stuff…why
aren’t they in the videos? I don’t know a ton about RJI but I know it’s in the university…
to me it seems like students should be a bigger part of it. Otherwise explain why I
should listen to this host guy, I mean you don’t even really explain who he is in the
videos? And seriously, I’m sorry I keep bringing this up but now it’s bothering me, can
he be like…charismatic? I don’t know, he has zero emotion. [gets very off topic at this
point]
Did not have an iPad, so iPad testing was not done.
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4. Mike Tigas - Web/mobile applications developer, journalist, and 2013 Knight-Mozilla OpenNewsFellow at ProPublica.
I’m not a big fan of video programs on the Internet - it’s kind of like an attention span
thing. It’s only 8 minutes, so it’s not like a big time commitment thing, I can kind of put it
on in the background. There are some pretty cool tools and people that you guys seem
to talk to. It seems like you reach out to some interesting people so that’s kind of nice.
It would probably be better for me if it was like, 3-4 minutes.
I think the RJI website is pretty straightforward.
You (RJI) have a bunch of streams going on and it kind of comes together in one
stream of updates
It’s pretty well produced, it’s just kind of a time thing and not all of the topics are all that
interesting to me but that’s because I’m more on the nerd data reporting side of things
you know?
You guys talk about tools for social and stuff, but also bringing in people to talk about a
reporting project they’ve done and the technology they’ve used for that could be a cool
try-out. Or like find a few stories that have a common element and talk to a couple
people. I’m with the Mozilla Open News project too and there’s this blog called “Source”
where we invite people to write about projects they’ve been working on. So you guys
could maybe check that out. and also like that’s an idea for possible content you guys
could be doing too.
I don’t really know about the whole anchor format, but it kind of helps that you have a
few story blocks that are tied together by the person kind of transitioning one to the
other. But I don’t know if I enjoy that format so much. It might just be due to the length of
the video and all that.
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It’s just an aesthetic opinion, but I guess it’s kind of necessary for you to help bring an 8-
minute thing together and introduce different segments. It is kind of a way of doing
pieces on very different things within the same show. It works for the format.
I can’t actually think of a better alternative but … it works for what you guys are doing
with it.
When I’ve done it I’ve just flipped to the tool or the person that was interesting to me -
why I clicked on the video in the first place. That’s kind of what I’ve done.
How do you usually get to the videos?Usually people I follow on Twitter. I went to Mizzou so I’m still friends with people that
are with RJI. It just kind of shows up on my feed.
It helps if it’s someone I know or I’ve heard of. If its this person who does this awesome
data work, yeah lets hear what they have to say. This project they’ve been working on.
It’s pretty well-produced.
Generally it’s pretty great - you guys have a theme for the episode or whatever.
Sometimes I’ll just skip an entire episode because the theme isn’t something I’m all that
interested in. But the topics have been pretty interesting, like the ones I’ve jumped in
and watched.
Supplementary content?Yeah that’s way cool - sometimes for me more useful than the actually video content.
Like here’s where to find all these cool projects that people are talking about. It’s like
finding the sources, since you guys talk about people and tools and so the ability to look
at the original source is kind of really important for someone like me I guess.
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Some of the episodes it was just a list of links and on others there were descriptions for
each part, and I kind of liked the reminder like, ‘here’s a couple sentences about this
thing we talked about’ - the more thorough text-based follow-up.
I do have an iPad and I have not tried it out there.
5. Jack Craver - political reporter, Capital Times, Madison, WI
“I thought that the initial piece about the architecture of the newsroom was interesting. I
thought the content was compelling and I thought it introduced a lot of subjects
reporters wouldn’t think about on a daily basis - it would never even occur to them. It’s
sort of outside of our element.”
“The tone could have been a lot better. I thought it was sort of boring, kind of going
through the NPR-type feel. The host was very flat in his introduction.”
“I initially didn’t understand what they were talking about when they talked about the
architecture of the newsroom. I didn’t realize they were literally talking about the layout
of a newsroom and so I thought they could have introduced that in a way that made it
clear that they were talking about something you might not have thought about like,
“Hey, have you guys ever thought about how the seats and desks are arranged in a
newsroom? because it matters.” If you start off right off the bat telling you not that
they’re going to tell you about something but why it matters. I think that’s the key thing
that… that’s sort of my guiding philosophy in journalism - don’t just tell the reader
something matters, tell them why. tell them why it’s important to them. I dont think that
was necessarily made clear.”
“But the actual the way the video was put together was great, the editing was great. The
way they had so many different sources was good. I think the video was put together
really well, it just could have used a stronger introduction.”
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“I guess I don’t really know if the anchor plays a particularly significant role in the video.
I don’t know if his presence is critical, if the reporter herself could not have introduced
the subject herself.”
“The quality of the video is great. I’m not a video expert so I don’t notice the details…
but as far as I could see it seemed in-line with what I’d see from a top news organization
like the NYT video.”
What did you think about the topics of the stories?
“I thought they were very interesting. I thought the architecture of the newsrooms story
was interesting, it’s something I haven’t thought about much even though right now
actually our entire newsroom is getting re-arranged - the cubicles are getting torn down
and put into different places and it was interesting to see the research or thought
process that underpins what I see going on in my workspace right now because I know
that there was some philosophy underpinning what’s going on right now with our
workplace re-alignment but I certainly hadn’t heard the sort of academic presentation
that was in the video.”
“The NYT paywall story was very interesting. That’s a story that I think every reporter
across the country is interested in and what most interesting was that how that lead into
the discussion of audience cultivation that followed it. Essentially, the NYT knows its
audience and knows that it has a certain number of readers who are willing to pay for its
content because of its unique product. … what’s such good news for the NYT is rather
ominous though for a lot of newspapers across the country because as I think was
explained in the video, they don’t have that connection with readers necessarily
because their purpose is to be this all-encompassing local media outlet but it might not
have this strong relationship with its readers that the NYT does because the NYT
content is unique and perceived as so different than everything else.”
Length?
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“I thought it wasn’t too long. It was long enough to deliver me some interesting
information but it wasn’t so long that … it was very manageable.”
Supplementary Content?…..(confusion about what the supplementary content is…) “Oh I see. So it’s largely a
summary of the video right? It didn’t catch my attention but it didn’t…. It didn’t occur to
me to look at it. It looks pretty helpful though. It’s hard to say just because I think if I
click on the video and go to this page, what it might show on my screen is just the video
and then right below the video this one explanatory sentence and I don’t see anything
below that and I don’t really assume that there’s something below that. I don’t really
have any suggestions.”
Sources?“Yeah, the sources were great. You got the NYT guy to explain in very frank terms who
is reading the NYT and why they can get their readers to pay and why others might
struggle to do that. I thought he explained it … in a way that was more frank than the
typical PR-explanation…he wasn’t just saying, “The NYT is great and people are willing
to pay.” He’s saying, “We’re different and other papers face a different set of challenges
so this might not be the way they address their financial needs but this is the way that
works for us.” And it was great that you go the guy that actually set up the paywall for
the NYT to talk to you guys. And the third segment was largely on one source. it was
interesting. I guess you could have had more sources but from my experience she’s
saying what most media consultants would say. So I don’t know if you would have
gotten a wide-variety of perspectives on that. But you got a lot of sources and that’s
always good.”
Usability Test:- Some difficulty finding the Futures Lab Updates link from the main RJI website.
“About clicking on the Futures Lab? I probably wouldn’t click on that because it looks
like an ad. Better to have something in the menu at the top.”
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Finding Social Media?“Yeah, could be better. Ohhh I see it’s across the top here. It’s like halfway down the
page on the right…. wait… So on the top of the page if I click on the Twitter it’s just RJI
in general. Who’s running the Twitter account? hmmmm interesting. Well I’m just
looking at it, they’re re-tweeting, that’s good but they should be a little more interactive.
They should use hashtags. Interacting directly with people on Twitter, asking people
questions, not just re-tweeting things but commenting on things that other people tweet
- that’s the way to get your Twitter following up and also just to be more interesting. The
danger with any Twitter account for an organization is that people will just perceive it as
spitting out propaganda or press releases. You have to have a personality behind it
because people don’t want to follow robots. If you prove that there’s a person behind it
that’s interacting with people, then people will actually reach out to you and will seek to
interact with you through that.”
Finding the most recent episode from the main page:Yeah, that’s how I got there.
6. Thomas Offinga, Designer, The Next Web (email)
Why did TNW decide to switch from using Mag+ with TNW Magazine to PRSS with SHIFT? What factors helped make that decision?There were multiple reasons for us to make the switch. First of all, we weren’t that
happy with Mag+. Sure it did the job, but it was also a lot of work to push magazines
out. Mag+ just had a whole lost of disadvantages weighing it down for us, like the fact
you have to do pretty much everything manually. And on top of that, you also have to
work with InDesign, a piece of software I both love and hate. It just felt antiquated. My
boss Boris put it like this: “Mag+ felt like a carriage with one horse in front of it, instead
of a carriage with a big engine in it”. It felt convoluted in a way that really made us
reconsider even making a digital magazine. Luckily, we were contacted by Jochem, one
of the co-founders of PRSS, who happens to also be Dutch and live about half an hour
away from our offices. So a meeting was quickly arranged and we’re now one of their
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launching partners which actually gives us the opportunity to weigh in on the
development of the software. Having only used it for a couple of months now, it feels a
whole lot more like the ‘built from the ground on up’ kind of software you’re looking for
when you’re trying to make an amazing magazine for the iPad.
You've gone from a monthly workflow with TNW Mag to a quarterly workflow with SHIFT, what was the general outline of these for each publication?We’re still very much figuring this part out. With TNW Magazine we tried to do a new
theme every month and quickly realized it’s not that realistic to do, as you’re running out
of themes very quickly. We originally decided to do some sort of quarterly catalog when
we started making SHIFT, making it a great reference point for people looking for the
best gadgets, apps, startups, you name it. It fit the quarterly publishing scheme quite
well, but we very quickly (App Store review are quite honest in the criticism!) realized
that people don’t really want to pay for that.
That’s why we’re going back to the themes, but are focused on getting the best kind of
contributors and content possible.
Did you consider any other publishers? We definitely looked around, especially when we kind of get fed up with Mag+, but
found that there just arent that many other publishers out there. Sure, there’s the Adobe
publishing software that Condé Nast and other big names use, but they all seem to
focus on getting the user to read a magazine that is 1. pretty much a straight copy from
the InDesign files that were sent to print and 2. force the user to download 300-500mb
files before they can read a word.
We actually considered for a while to develop our own, but we gave that up when we
realized how much work that actually and how much it would’ve cost us.
What other platforms have you worked with?We’ve only used Mag+ and PRSS now. We released an Android version of TNW
Magazine at some point, but it turns out there are about (don’t pin me down for this) one
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gazillion different screen sizes when it comes to Android tablets. A nice experiment, but
not worth our time (and money).
Now, for the focus-testing bit, you'll want to make sure you download the Futures Lab iPad app, found here. Essentially, Futures Lab is a weekly show produced here at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism that explores innovation in newsrooms. The most recent episode can be found here.
Once done with the download, go ahead and watch an episode at the site. It's about ten minutes long. And when you're done with that, I'd like to know your thoughts on these questions: Thoughts on......the format of the video?The format seems really solid and well thought out! While I didn’t really see the need for
the man in the studio in the beginning to be there, I get that it helps break the pace a
little bit.
...the quality of the video?Editing wise, this was great. I really enjoyed how well it was paced and the 10 minutes
seems to fly by, which is great for internet videos. The interviews were a bit low quality
in terms is video quality (overlit, too high contrast), but it seems the right questions were
asked.
..the content of the video?A good mix of source material and self-shot material made for a quite interesting piece!
..the length of the video?The length seemed just fine, maybe a bit too long for Youtube. It’s different when you’re
watching it on a dedicated device like the iPad though, I think it’s totally fine there :)
..the sources used in the video?I think it was a well-rounded set of sources, but I can’t speak to the quality really..
Seemed like the people who were interviewed knew what they’re talking about!
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After that, there are some questions regarding the website itself, rjionline.org. Once you're there, go ahead and try these various website-related tasks. They're pretty simple, and are being asked to make sure we don't have anything too vague/hard-ish to find:Find the Futures Lab Video Updates page.Find contact and social media information for the Futures Lab (email, Twitter, Facebook).Find the most recent episode.Can you find the supplementary information?Can you see how to share the video or the page?Find the first episode.
After doing that stuff, which is hopefully pretty easy. Consider these questions:
Was anything difficult to find?The only thing I had trouble finding was the supplementary information. Maybe you just
meant the videos description, because that’s not that hard to find :)
Does it look professional?All of the elements you asked me to find really stood out due to their colorful branding.
This made it very recognizable, but I’d suggest something a bit less harsh for the Social
Media Information box for example, because the gray/red combination is kind of an eye
soar. The other thing I’d maybe make a bit more professional are the sharing services
which kind of seem lumped in there. Otherwise, it’s totally all right!
Is it easy to use? Definitely. I’m a person that knows his way around a website so I had no troubles
finding what I needed. I’d maybe change up the comment section a bit more to entice
people to respond. All the rules and stuff below the video make it a bit daunting to
actually leave a comments.
Did you find it helpful? -- specifically the supplementary info? Would a video archive be useful as far as finding older episodes?
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I didn't find the supplementary info to be that essential. Only when I really wanted to
look something up about what I had seen did I need it. A video archives definitely would
help, especially if it gave me the option to sort by subject.
Annnnd almost done. (Thanks again for doing this) Next is testing the app:Open the app and then download the current issue (should be around 100MB).As you view each page, consider each of these aspects and record your thoughts on how each were presented:
Design/LayoutI’m going to be honest with you.. The design shocked me a bit. It felt a bit dated for a
publication that wants to be at the forefront of journalism. I’d invest a bit more time in
getting the design to look cleaner and more consistent. I’d also take a look at
diversifying font choices and make it a bit less grey and a bit more colorful.
The design mostly needs a bit more breathing room. It all feels so cramped, which
makes it look like it’s a lot lower quality than it actually is, which is a shame.
NavigationVery straightforward and very much in line with most magazine apps on the iPad. This
is a good thing. I did however have a problem figuring out where I was in a the
magazine and which issue I was reading. I also had trouble finding my way back to the
‘home screen’ again, with an overview of all issues.
ContentFeels like a good balance between the video and all the supplemental content!
Supplementary content/linksThe supplementary content made much more sense in the app than it did on the iPad.
All this content seemed really well thought out.
Please record any additional thoughts as well.It’s a bummer you have to download a big file before you can read anything. I’ll admit,
we were a part of the problem when we made TNW Magazine, but I think we as a
publishing industry have to go past this model at some point. Get people the ability to
start reading instantly and get them hooked instantly!
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Finally, for a video-only publication like ours, where we’re essentially cutting up a longer episode, which do you think would be more useful? I think cutting up content is definitely something worth pursuing, especially in an age
where we all have such short attention spans. Quality over quantity!
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