Beat Blogging

Improving content with Web data and analytics

Web content analytics give content creators an unprecedented look at what people like and which content garners the most traffic.

With Web analytics, content creators like writers, bloggers, photographers, database developers, etc can find out which content is getting the most page views and visits and from where those visitors are coming from. Content creators can also find out which search terms most often land people on their content.

This isn't to say that content producers should only produce content that gets large amounts of traffic, but individual content producers now have data that they never had before. This data allows content producers to adjust their content to better suit the needs and desires of their users. Sometimes content producers are producing exactly the content that users want, but they are releasing it at the wrong time of day or they are not pushing content onto the right platforms.

Newspapers have long had eye tracking studies, but this information was largely available on the macro level. Individual content producers like beat bloggers now have access to very detailed and minute information about their content. They can see which topics are popular, what kinds of content (written, photos, podcasts, etc) are most liked by users, what time of day it is best to release content, where their traffic is coming from (bookmarks, RSS, Twitter, Google, Fark, etc) and more using today's site analytics.

Let's look at some real-world examples:

I recently launched a new hyperlocal beat blog, Chagrin Valley Sports, and I have already altered my content based on the search engine terms that people have found my site with. It's clear to me that I'm not covering certain schools enough -- West Geauga and Chagrin Falls in particular.

People looking for those two schools are able to find my site because it is one of the top search queries when someone types in "Chagrin Falls football," for instance. Unfortunately, I don't have much content up for Chagrin Falls. Someone who lands any my site looking for content about the Chagrin Falls football team will quickly leave my site.

Because of my site analytics, I now realize that I need to cover certain schools more than I had originally thought. I can also see which kinds of content are most popular and produce more content like that.

Another example comes from Mark Luckie. He is a print journalist, who has combined his love of multimedia and journalism together and runs the blog 10,000 Words. He says that Web analytics made him realize that his most popular posts were lists.

"It definitely forced me out of the old media model of writing long paragraphs of text, but I think that is a good thing," he said.

This doesn't mean everyone should make a lot of lists, but for 10,000 Words, it's probably not a bad idea to make more posts that are comprised of lists, instead of long paragraphs.

Monica Guzman, who runs The Big Blog at The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, says she checks the traffic on her posts at least once an hour. Guzman said this data is very helpful for her, and it allows her to do her job better.

"Seeing this data is extremely helpful - not only to my understanding of my audience and what they want to read, but also to my daily schedule," she said. "If the posts I wrote in the morning aren't doing well, I'll prioritize a post with higher traffic potential for the afternoon, and vice-versa."

The timing of posts are important, as I noted last week. In general, after lunch and after work are the two peak times for Web traffic. This, however, is not universal, and detailed Web analytics will allow content producers to know the peak times to release content on their Web sites. In fact, different beat blogs at the same paper might have different peak traffic times.

Many newspapers dump print content onto their Web sites after the last print deadline, usually between 10 p.m. and midnight. That is typically not a good time to release content, unless there is breaking news. Most beat bloggers would be advised against releasing content that late.

Guzman said that audience and topic trend information only becomes useful over longer periods of time like weeks and months.

"You start to see trends in what keywords get more clicks, what the hot topics are," she said. "And you inform your idea of what your audience wants to read, and how they want to read it."

If you or your company is looking for good, detailed analytics, Google Analytics is a strong choice, and it's free. There are other options available, but it's important for news organizations to make sure they have detailed analytics. Many content producers, however, tell me that they do not have access to this data and wish they did.

More news organizations, however, are allowing employees to access Web traffic data. This is becoming more important as more content producers move to the Web. 

Blog readers lead to A1 story for Dallas Morning News

Kent Fischer of The Dallas Morning News received an e-mail on Monday from a teacher about new district grading policies for Dallas.

At first, Fischer didn't think it was a big story, but he made a blog post about it anyway, asking readers what the impact of the new grading policies would be. His readers -- many of which are teachers -- knew more about this topic than be did, and he hoped they could shed some light on the situation.

His post prompted a reader to forward him some district documents that laid out how broad the new grading policies would be. The tipster told Fischer this meant new, lower standards. Fischer made a post that linked to the documents:

Color me skeptical, but there are enough loopholes in these rules to drive a grade-inflated truck through. Seriously, given all the second chances, fudge factors and wiggle room these rules enact, wouldn't it take an act of God for a kid to flunk a class?

He even helped readers out by marking up a district memo (PDF) with a "quick and dirty" translation of some of the key points. He broke down a several hundred word memo into six key points.

A sea of comments formed at the end of his post from teachers who were almost uniformly denouncing the new polices. Those two posts led directly to today's front page story, "DISD plan to ease grading standards angers teachers:"

Dallas public school students who flunk tests, blow off homework and miss assignment deadlines can make up the work without penalty, under new rules that have angered many teachers.

The story already has more than 100 comments. A new district grading policy might not seem like a big story to an outsider or even a beat reporter, but to the people it affects, it can be a huge story. Fischer's readers helped him realize the gravity of the situation and were the reason this became a big story in the Dallas area.

"In this instance, the blog really paid off, in that readers tipped us off to a good story that was still mostly obscured from the public," Fischer said.

The newsroom did stick to its traditional-media guns in one instance. The print edition would not allow anonymous comments from Fischer's blog to appear in print. So, Fischer had to "go out and re-report what was already on the blog."

Since I'm not tied to print conventions and superstitions, I'm going to post some of the gems left in the comments section on Fischer's blog from teachers.

"This is unbelievable. More proof that our goal is to graduate, not educate our kids. Are you really going to be ready for college or the workforce if deadlines don't matter and you are allowed to retake every test failed? But wait, we don't care if you flunk out of college the first semester, as long as we pushed you through TAKS and gave you a diploma (no matter how little you did to get it), DISD's job is done. If this is the best urban district in the country, we are all in real trouble." - Oak Cliff Teacher

"Wow. Congratulations DISD. I had actually considered reapplying to come back after a year of teaching in the suburbs. Thanks for making the decision so easy for me. I really feel like a fool for keeping my kids in your school district. That's two more high achievers that you will be losing due to the Road to Broad mediocrity that you are perpetuating." - Pineywoods

"What a shock awaits our college ready graduates when they enter that college classroom and find out that there are no retakes, there is lot more than an hour's worth of work outside the class, and deadlines must be met. But then it will be quite a shock when colleges no longer accept a DISD transcript." - Taxedout

Interview with the Sac Bee's Jon Ortiz about timing and starting a beat blog

Timing has been good to Jon Ortiz.

The Sacramento Bee had originally planned to launch his blog about California state workers later, but realized that it would be wise to capitalize on the state budget impasse between Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature. That fateful decision instantly made The State Worker one of the most popular blogs for the Sac Bee.

Schwarzenegger laid off some state workers, reduced the pay of others and instituted a hiring freeze, which he hopes will force the legislature to provide him with an acceptable budget. State workers do not like being used as bargaining chips, Ortiz said.

Ortiz has been all over one of the biggest stories in years for California state workers.

Ortiz has several issues to figure out with the blog, however. He writes a weekly column, and is still sorting out how to best utilize his new blog with his popular column. Ortiz believes his blog will allow him to cover his beat better by allowing him to report on more stories and in new ways.

Ortiz says the blog is the first step. He hopes to incorporate more Web technology in the future for his beat. For him, it is about learning what the Web can do to help his beat.

While California does have a lot of state workers, 125,000, Ortiz has found more than just state workers find his blog interesting. He hopes his blog can help educate the public about what state workers do and help dispel some wife's tales about state workers.

He says he spends about half his time on the blog and the other half on working for print. Like many other beat bloggers, Ortiz is spending more time working now than before. Maybe in the future this will change, but it can be hard to convince editors to cut down on the amount of print copy produced.

The State Worker is still in its infancy, and will have to change dramatically once the state budget impasse is over. Ortiz is hoping to make his blog into a  community for state workers.

"Ultimately, I'd like to see the blog become the clearing house for state workers' issues and debate," Ortiz said. "I'd like for it to elevate the discussion amongst state workers about their jobs and the public they serve."

Ortiz also discusses how blogging has changed his column, how the blog will allow him more direct access to his readers and how the blog will allow him to find new sources.

Click here to steam the interview. Or download the mp3.

Comment of the week and hoisting comments catching on

The practice of hoisting comments is beginning to catch on with more beat bloggers.

Education Week's Eduwonkette blog has launched its own comment of the week feature called the COWAbunga Award. The feature was inspired by one of the beat bloggers we're following, Kent Fischer. This week, Eduwonkette is highlighting two user comments -- one serious and one satirical:

Starting today and every week thereafter I'll follow his example and give the COWAbunga Award to an insightful, interesting, or funny comment on this site.

For many beat bloggers, the idea of hoisting user comments is a good way to build community and make users feel like their opinions matter. It also doesn't require a lot of work for a beat blogger that is already active within his or her blog's comments section.

Timing can impact traffic to a blog

Content isn't everything.

Timing is important too. Jon Ortiz and The Sacramento Bee recently launched a new beat blog ahead of schedule, The State Worker, because Governor Schwarzenegger announced he would fire some state works and reduce the pay of the rest unless he was handed a new state budget.

The Bee realized they had to launch The State Worker immediately, instead of on their original timetable. This was one of the biggest issues for California state workers in years, and the Bee wanted to get ahead of it:

Our well-crafted plan was to debut this blog and an accompanying print column next week. Events dictate otherwise, and we're opening up the blog today.

In its first week, The State Work became one of the most popular blogs for the Bee, attracting tens of thousands of page views a day. Ortiz attributes the timing of the blog's launch as one of the major reasons why his new beat blog is so popular less than a month into its existence.

Launching a blog for the presidential election, for instance, would make a lot more sense to do so in the run up to the primaries, instead of right after the presidential election is over. Capitalizing on events in the world is a way to generate traffic to a blog and establish relevance. The Bee picked a great time to launch a blog for state workers.

Ortiz wants his new beat blog to be a place for California state workers to come to and learn about issues impacting their jobs. He also wants his blog to be the place to have conversations about those issues.

There are also best and worst times to launch content during the day:

Luciani's conclusion: between 1pm and 3pm PST (after lunch) or between 5pm and 7pm PST (after work) are the best times and Thursday is the best day. The worst time to post? Between 3 and 5 PM PST on the weekends - nobody cares.

These recommendations are for national sites, but they also are applicable per time zone as well. If the majority of your users are in the Eastern Time Zone, launch content between 1 pm and 3 pm Eastern and between 5 pm and 7 pm Eastern. Monday-Thursday are the best days to launch content, and Friday evening is a very poor time to launch content.

There are always exceptions. however. A college football blog should update on Saturdays. A blog for a major league baseball team could update any day during the season. But a blog like The State Worker should follow these guidelines to insure maximum traffic and visibility for posts.

The issue is simple. Late at night, early in the morning, etc are not a prime surfing times for many people. If content is launched then, it will sit for hours before traffic begins to pick up again. By then a lot of new content will get launched, pushing that content down in RSS readers and off of homepages.

Obviously, anytime there is breaking news, that content should go up ASAP. But for general content, timing can often be just as important as content. Good site analytics (Google Analytics is a good, free solution) can help content producers understand the best times to launch content.

Interview with Matt Neznanski about issues he has run into starting a beat blog

Matt Neznanski started a new beat blog -- his second -- a few months ago, but hasn't found the success he was looking for.

His latest beat blog, Green City, is on sustainable living in Corvallis, Oregon. He wants to make this a community project, because it was the community that inspired him to start the blog:

In April, nearly 600 people showed up to a town hall meeting hosted by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition to start building a plan for sustainability in Corvallis. This followed closely on the heels of Corvallis being named “Best Green City” in the nation by Country Home magazine.

But while “green” implies an environmental focus, the folks at the April meeting learned that sustainability has three intersecting spheres: environmental, social and economic. Clearly, this means we’ll have to make choices — sometimes tough ones — as we move forward.

Our city’s focus on sustainability means that we as a news organization will be spending a lot of time with it and the best way to learn how to live green and understand sustainability would be to do so together.

Our Green City site will gather our reporting to tell you about local people doing inspiring things to foster sustainability and we’ll direct you to events to meet people and learn more about it.

Neznanski has run into several problems:

• His paper is in a college town, and many people leave town during the summer. He is trying to find new ways to keep his blog active during the slow summer months.
• He has had trouble getting guest bloggers. He wants this blog to have a lot of community voices, but only one person has written a guest post for him so far. He underestimated the impact that summer would have on his blog.
• Neznanski wants to start linking to more outside content about sustainable living. He originally planned on doing this, but got away from it. He wants to get back to it and believes it will help make his blog stronger.
• Some people who are interested in writing about sustainability have never written for a blog before. Neznanski has to help them learn how to write blog posts.

Neznanski did discover several positive things, however. His paper is now able to launch a new blog in about an hour due to WordPress. He said that anyone can learn to use WordPress in a short period of time, and the software is free. It's been a really strong CMS for his newspaper.

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download the mp3.

Harnessing the wisdom of users at the Houston Chronicle

Not all users are created equal.

Some users know more than a reporter does about a given subject. In a traditional media world that wisdom would largely go unused. But innovative beat bloggers like Eric Berger, and his employer the Houston Chronicle, have found ways to harness the wisdom of their wisest users by giving them blogs.

The Chronicle has launched three "sphere" blogs, one on climate change, another on astronomy and space and the last one on evolution. What makes these blogs stand out is that the people writing them in many ways can be considered experts.

Atmo.Sphere is run by John Nielsen-Gammon, a Texas state climatologist, and Barry Lefer, a professor of climate change and atmospheric chemistry at the University of Houston.

Cosmo.Sphere is run by Justin Kugler, an engineer at NASA; Steve Clayworth, an amateur astronomer and Fritz Benedic, a professional astronomer. Each brings their own perspective on the cosmos and space exploration to the table.

Evo.Sphere is run by Steven Schafersman. He is a working scientist in the petroleum and environmental industries in West Texas. He studied evolutionary paleontology while he was working for his geology Ph.D. at Rice University.

None of these bloggers are paid, and you can sense the child-like enthusiasm they have for scientific topics in many of their posts, especially in the Cosmo.Sphere blog. Plus these bloggers know their stuff. They know their "beats" better than most beat reporters.

Take this post from Kugler about water on Mars. Plenty of news outlets and reporters broke the news of water being found on Mars, but Kugler outlines why it is important:

As an aerospace engineer working on human space flight and exploration, the confirmation of water on Mars is important to me because it means that we can utilize local resources to sustain human missions to the Red Planet.  This proves that we can follow the "live off the land" approach that Dr. Robert Zubrin has long advocated.  (I first read The Case for Mars when I was in high school!) 

With water on the surface, we only have to carry what we need for the trip itself - which translates into tremendous weight savings and, thus, lower cost.  Martian water can be used for drinking, food preparation, greenhouse irrigation, construction, and production of hydrogen and oxygen.  We can, thus, make our own breathing air and rocket fuel using local resources.

From a scientific perspective, the presence of water on Mars is an important boon to the field of astrobiology.  We are reasonably certain that Mars was a much wetter and warmer planet in the past.  It may have been wet enough and warm enough for primitive life, whose fossils human explorers might be able to find. 

And yes, other users have responded well to the sphere blogs too. These blogs are generating comments and building community, just like Berger's blog.

Berger is a very popular science blogger, and now he is flanked by three science blogs written by experts. This is the kind of niche, in-depth information that newspapers have traditionally not excelled at but makes a lot of sense on the Web.

 

Interview with Monica Guzman about newsroom culture

This is the second part of my interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Monica Guzman. Part 1 was about cultivating conversations.

This  time Guzman and I are talking about newsroom culture. She thinks many young journalists are looking for the door, especially in the Seattle area.

Seattle is filled with tech companies and startups. Those companies embrace change and failure

"Two things newspapers don't do," she said. "It can be really, really frustrating to have a good idea, or hear of another paper with a good idea, to propose to whomever and just be told, 'it's not important, we can't do it right now,' or, the No. 1 thing, 'we just don't have the staff.'"

That being said, she doesn't think being averse to change is all about age. Many veterans journalists take to online quickly, while other young journalists just want to write in print.

"I think the main characteristic is just being open to change," she said.

Guzman said her editors and her started with the "stupid assumption" that they could dictate what The Big Blog would be like and that it would be successful. She said that newspapers think they know everything about what readers want, and much of what they thought readers wanted was dead wrong.

"It's 100 percent about the readers," Guzman said.

Comments allow newsrooms to make better products. Guzman found out that the original idea for The Big Blog wasn't what readers wanted, and with reader feedback she has changed the focus of the blog.

"Readers have opened the door to the clearest path [of success] every time," she said.

Guzman said the No. 1 obstacle in newsrooms in today is attitude.

"Newsrooms are very sad places," she said. "It's hard to get people excited."

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download mp3.

Analyzing posts to cultivate conversations and community

We've been talking about ways to cultivating conversations and communities lately.

Monica Guzman, the first online reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, has yet another way to get the conversation going. She analyzes previous comments that posters have made to spot trends. She then makes posts about them, asking users for their thoughts.

A few weeks ago people started commenting about a woman accused of killing her family and how she wanted the death penalty. Many responses suggested that people couldn't wait to see this woman die. Guzman thought this topic would be good to analyze:

Early in the forum, reader dalefi asked if the death penalty was about justice or revenge. "Judging from the comments posted here," the reader later wrote, "it is definitely about revenge."

Anonymity releases ugly instincts. But are they our true ones? Do you want justice for Michele Anderson? Or revenge?

Guzman had also noticed that people talk about the "Seattle Way" a lot in comments:

Accompanied and sometimes skewed by would-be smears like "left-wing" and "liberal," Seattle's tendency to talk issues to death is one of the most-repeated grievances against the city in our Soundoffs on local politics.

Recent history gives us plenty of examples. Think of the monorail, the light rail, the viaduct, school busing, the Seattle Commons, the stadiums. All sparked drawn-out, slow discussion. All took a long time to resolve - if they were resolved at all.

Guzman took this common complaint about Seattle and turned it into a way to get users to start talking about more substantive issues:

If you had a magic wand and could take action on just one jammed issue in Seattle, what would it be?

The last example I want to highlight is about the seemingly harmless issue of bonfires. It was proposed that bonfires be banned from Seattle beaches to help fight global warming. This issue brought liberals and conservatives together. Guzman found three common issues that users brought up:

1. Aren't there better ways to fight global warming than to go after little bonfires?
2. Global warming is important, but so is the way I live my life.
3. This is just too silly. The government must have another motive.

Guzman spends each day analyzing what people are talking about on the PI's Web site, blogs and in the Seattle blogosphere. She is looking for flash points that get people talking, and she is looking for further ways to extend the conversation to cultivate an online community.

Not many papers have someone who does what Guzman does. Few even have someone who is in charge of community engagement. These are the new kinds of jobs that newspapers need to be competitive online.

Interview with Monica Guzman about cultivating conversations

"Despite what might happen to our industry, despite what form it will take, despite the business model, people will always want to know what is going on and will always want to have an intelligent conversation. They just need to be empowered to do so."

For Monica Guzman, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's first online reporter, empowering people is a major way to cultivate comments and build a community. She runs The Big Blog, a blog dedicated to keeping tabs on what's happening in Seattle and the Seattle blogosphere.

"I'm convinced that newspapers need to rise up and take responsibility not just for the quality of the news, but for the quality of the conversation," Guzman said.

Guzman believes newspapers need to cultivate comments. She is a fan of hoisting comments and is working on implementing a comment of the week feature.

"It tells readers that you are listening," Guzman said about hoisting comments. "You're actually watching what they say. And it rewards readers for being smart and actually taking the time to make their comments useful and intelligent."

Guzman is surprised about how much people care about the news.

"As soon as people are empowered with their own tools like blogging tools and a publishing platform like the Internet, [it's amazing] to see how many people will take the opportunity to become reporters for their own blocks," Guzman said. "And I just think that's a beautiful thing."

When she first started there were a handful of community blogs, but now a new one pops up every month. Part of what she does is link to other bloggers and keep tabs on the blogosphere.

Guzman knows that some of her editors are uncomfortable with the ethic of collaboration. Many journalists are still stuck in the competition mindset.

"I love the blogging ethic of collaboration and I hate the ethic of competition," she said.

One time Guzman wanted to link to a Seattle Times story because her paper didn't have the story. At first her editors didn't want her to do so because that was the competition's work, but she insisted. Her editors eventually said if the PI doesn't have a story, she can link to the Times as a last resort.

"When it comes down to it, sometimes your competing paper will write a good story that you didn't write," she said. "I wanted to become a trusted guide for my readers for what's interesting going on in Seattle. How can I be trusted as a good guide if there is some sort of curtain over our competitor?"

Can you imagine a blog without links?

Much more is tackled in part 1 of my interview with Guzman.

Click here to stream the interview. Or click here to download the MP3.