Salon Media Group Richard Gingras
September 30, 2009
Design News Products from a Search-centric Perspective
Traffic flowsTraffic flowsInbound traffic: Home Page versus Rest-of-SiteInbound traffic: Home Page versus Rest-of-Site
50%
50%
Traffic flowsTraffic flows
Source of rest-of-site traffic Search Engines Referral Sites: aggregators, email,
blogs, news-ranking sites (e.g. Digg, NewsTrust)
Behaviors: query-driven as well as browsing 83% use search to access news; 53%
frequently 15-35% of news site traffic comes from
search/aggregation It’s not only a good traffic but it’s a
great source of new “uniques” and an opportunity to drive product discovery
Ephemeral anthrax attack article Persistent anthrax attack resource
Rethink Content ArchitectureRethink Content ArchitectureNecessary to work the “matrix” from every dimension
Topic PagesTopic PagesThe new article page
Salon ArticlesSalon Articles
Audience EngagementAudience Engagement
Twitter StreamTwitter Stream Real-time micro-sites on important issues, ongoing stories, hot topics
Locus for engagement Editors as experts of
their domains Widget structure
supports variationby topic
Background InfoBackground Info
Aggregated CoverageAggregated Coverage
OwnershipOwnership
Increase search rank Draw new users Drive product discovery Increased ad relevancy
Rethink Focus and OutputRethink Focus and Output“Every new medium begins as a container for the old” “Every new medium begins as a container for the old”
The article is not the end product of the reporting effort. It’s that topic page. The full representation of the coverage of a beat
Rethink roles What is the day-to-day role of a reporter when creation and
publication can be in the reporter’s hands?
What is the day-to-day role of an editor in an edition-less environment? Editor, harvester, curator, leader of a crowd of trusted participants?
Salon Media Group Richard Gingras
September 30, 2009
Design News Products from a Search-centric Perspective