So, it’s been about a week since the launch of Murdoch’s Daily- an iPad-only (for now) paid application for news and original content. In their words, “Daily is a category first: a tablet-native national news brand built from the ground up to publish original content exclusively for the iPad.”
It follows on the footsteps, and some success, of Flipboard- another iPad application built for consuming content. FlipBoard and the Daily both use the iPad to present content in a visually stunning way. But FlipBoard simply repurposes the content, the Daily creates it’s OWN content – a risky step for the publishing industry, already on shaky ground. We’ve all heard about declining circulations in newspapers, and publishers trying to figure out how to make money as more content moves online.
Well, here’s why I like it.
- Someone has to have the guts to try something new in the fast- changing publishing environment. The world is being turned upside down by this new media thing, and if anyone is gonna make a run at it, it should be a guy with deep pockets and plenty of resources. If he screws up, so what? We’ll learn what worked, make tweaks and move on.
- It’s fresh, but polished and credible. It’s sort of a cross between Twitter and the NYTimes. If breaking news happens- we’ll get the fresh news online somewhere (Twitter?) then read an in-depth article about it the following day. Twitter=fresh but not necessarily accurate. NYT- still have to go through the long editorial/publishing process. The Daily is somewhere in between. The recent breaking news in Egypt is a perfect example of how The Daily was able to quickly adapt to changing stories…
- Interactive. This is an obvious one. (check out the video below to see it in action). You get everything in a nice tidy package. Well written articles, video, polls, social sharing, ability to leave “voice” comments and more. And, the ads didn’t feel like ads. If I liked them I clicked on them (some with video). If not, just a swipe to ignore and keep reading.
- Local customization: It obviously knows that I’m from Boston, and naturally picked my weather forecast and sports teams so I could get custom news (and tweets) which mattered to me. Too bad I’m not a Boston-sports fan… :-)
- It’s short and sweet. Let’s face it, our attention spans continue to decline. This content is written for that commute on the train, something to quickly read on the couch, or, my favorite, something to read before I go to bed.
Video below will give you a feel for what I’m talking about. What do you think? Have you tried it? Would you try it?Worth it?
It looks like LinkedIn is taking another good step in the world of social.
Yesterday, on their blog they announced a new feature for their Company pages, allowing companies to showcase their products and recommendations. To quote Ryan Roslanksy from LinkedIn, “Company Pages will enable companies to build their brand through network-aware recommendations, giving members rich, credible insights into how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow professionals.”
It’s still early going now, but here are some thoughts…
What I like about it:
Advantage Small Business: What a great opportunity for a small, growing business! If you’re an entrepreneur with a fairly large network on Linkedin. You have an ability to showcase your products and services, not just you. A person can get all the recommendations in the world, but if you have multiple products or services, that’s what you can showcase on your page. Need to quickly sell your old inventory of X product or service by the end of the year? Then highlight this in the “Featured” Section.
Partner Recommendations: If you are a professional service firm with various outside partners, you should be able to recommend other business partners (or products or services) here. If I’m an ad agency that works with a printing company, I’ll be able to highlight them here, and vice versa- a nice way of passing business back and forth.
Paving the Way: I think this gets another foot in the door for LinkedIn to get allow of your company’s content to live on Linkedin. A perfect chance for your company’s blog to live alongside this content, right?
What worries me:
Ok, there has to be some bad with the good here, so here goes.
Just recommendations? Here’s a look at Samsung’s company page, featuring several of their new products. But what if I had a bad experience with one of their products? Isn’t there room for a negative comment? How about a rating system here? Perhaps LinkedIn turned off this functionality on purpose? (I’ll check with their guy, Mario Sundar on this one)
Overkill? If I’m a big company like Samsung, do I really need this? Shouldn’t my reputation speak for itself? And, if they really want to push recommendations, these results better show up on a the first page of a Google search….
Another Layer: Yep, it’s one more added layer of work for the marketing team. But, in the changing world of inbound marketing and social media, it may just be worth it in the long run.
What’s Next?
LinkedIn is smart enough to know that all business still operates on a personal level. You or your company is still more likely to make a purchasing decision based on a recommendation from a peer, right? So, Linkedin is bringing that to the company level- let’s see what happens.
What do you think? Good move by LinkedIn, or waste of time?
Think your company is too big, bureaucratic, and important to dabble in social media? That increased accessibility from customers poses too much of a risk to justify the potential rewards?
Think again.
The US government is using social media to improve operations and provide greater transparency. In fact, according to BizReport, 66% of US Government agencies are using social networking tools. Last year, Mark Drapeau (Director of Innovative Social Engagement at Microsoft U.S. Public Sector) started an ongoing column at Mashable talking about the federal government and social media. In outlining a theory of social media use for the federal government, he explained the ultimate goal should be to make it easier for agencies within the government to communicate.
This internal use of social media is exactly what your big, bureaucratic, and reactive business should consider as well.
We spend a lot of time talking about social media as a marketing, branding, and advertising tool but often don’t acknowledge the benefits of using social media platforms to improve internal operations. That’s because today, social media is hard enough sell when you’re talking about visible increases to the bottom line in the form of sales; its harder to specifically quantify the benefits to an organization thanks to internal social media tools.
Amy Mengel at Mengel Musings wrote about a recent event in Albany where the New York State Senate’s CIO office explained how it is using social media to “pull the state government out of the DOS-ages”. (Love that description!) They focused on external uses of social media, which are also very important in the public sector: transparency, participation, and collaboration. New York State, like the White House itself, is even using open-source software so, as Mengal said, citizens can access information about their government whatever way works best for them.
But consider the example highlighted in a Harvard Business Review article last week of using social media internally. In one example, a company used it to revise a classroom training program more efficiently and effectively. The article mentioned micoblogging specifically, but the tips it contained, and those generated by the comments, are useful in the adoption of any social media tool:
- Have specific goals,
- Lead by example (ie, get the top executives involved),
- Provide training.
Bottom line here: If the Department of Defense can handle social media, so can your business. So, get educated on what tools are available, develop a plan, and start small.
