Tuesday, July 12, 2005 11:53 AM
While there are still some media outlets casting a wary eye at weblogs, news aggregation and syndication, there are also some which seem to be embracing, and yes leveraging, the power of the blogosphere. Case in point:
MSNBC.
The basis for my opinion? Here's my story... It so happens that I have set Google News alerts for all of the companies in which I either hold stock or in which I may be interested in holding stock. These alerts arrive in my inbox once a day in the form of headlines with links to the actual stories. Google News aggregates a wide spectrum of media sources worldwide, so I have found that that I am often presented with articles that I would never have found on my own (let's face it, how many of us have the time to aimlessly wander the web, searching for news every day?). What's important here is that MSNBC is not fighting news aggregators, like some newswires and media sources have done in threatening lawsuits, etcetera, but instead is recognizing what aggregators can deliver...eyeballs.
The reality is that I rarely visit MSNBC for my news. Thus, the chances of me stumbling across an article of interest at the site is close to nil. On the other hand, I check my news alerts every day. And, in this case, I clicked through a headline link in my alerts to read an article of interest at MSNBC. In fact, not only did I read that particular article, but I saw something else of interest in the margins of the article I was reading, and ending up clicking through quite a number of pages at MSNBC; talk about stickiness.
Even more interesting (to the blawgoshere) is that as I was reading an article at MSNBC, I decided I wanted to print a copy. So, I scrolled down the page looking for the "printer-friendly" button. It was there at the bottom, right next to a button I had never seen before, entitled "Blog this." When I clicked the button, I was directed to MSN Spaces, which is MSN's entry into blog editing and hosting. If I had a blawg hosted at MSN Spaces, I could have quickly and directly published a link to the article I had just read to my blawg.
Here's the thing. Almost every weblog editing software has a "Blog this" type of feature. Normally, it is a button or toolbar that is resides in your web browser and let's you quickly link articles you are reading on the web to your blawg. What is different in this case, is that MSNBC is specifically asking for readers to link MSNBC articles to their blawgs. In fact, they are making it as easy as printing a copy of the article. At the same time, by putting "Blog this" buttons at the bottom of every article at MSNBC, they are opening the door for "Blog this" to be as ubiquitous as the "Print This" feature we all see all over the web.
Truthfully, by tying "Blog This" only to MSN Spaces, it loses significant utility. However, the idea itself is a good one. Imagine if clicking that same button opened a menu with tie-ins to all of the major weblog software. Now, we are talking about adding true value.
In summing up my user experience, let me connect the dots. First, a news aggregator found an article at MSNBC in which it thought I might be interested. The aggregator knew I might be interested, because I had set up an alert at the aggregator using specific keywords (in this case a company's name). Via the alert, the aggregator delivered the article to my inbox at the end of the day. When I visited my inbox, I read through the headlines in the alert and found that the aggregator was right, I was interested in that article. I clicked through the article's headline, which delivered me to MSNBC so that I could read the article in full. After reading the article, I decided I wanted to share it with others, so I clicked the "Blog this" button and thus immediately published the article to my blawg, which is read by quite a number of people every day. These readers in turn could link to my blawg entry or the article itself, and soon this one MSNBC article could be read by millions. Okay, these last two sentences are more fiction than fact, as I don't use MSN Spaces and so I didn't publish the link to my blawg. However, the scenario is valid and one that is played out every single day. Because, if I can do it, others can do it; and the necessary tools are already widely available.
In the end, by accepting the possibilities that blawgs, aggregation and syndication offer, MSNBC's articles not only could find a much larger readership, but MSNBC.com itself could draw thousands of new eyeballs that otherwise would never have stopped by for a look. That is the power of the blawgosphere. A power which I believe MSNBC is embracing.