USA Today Turns Social Media
As you may have already heard or read about, USA Today has redesigned their site and incorporated many new social features. I can only imagine what the design teams went through to push these new features out the door.
Some of the new features on the site include: + Article Commenting + Personal Recommendations + User Profiles + User Blogs
As someone who has sat through meetings with large companies regarding these types of features, I know how tough it can be to get things done and still create an architecture for community engagement. Community does not always work with the classic saying: "Build it, and they will come". Large companies can have a difficult time giving power to users, especially without keeping their hand in the pot. But, so far, it appears that the USA Today features are genuine in their approach to creating community conversation.
Only time will tell as to how the USA Today site does, but it's a big step forward for the main stream media industry. Conversations are so important when dealing with todays news and media in all of it's glorified abundance. In the future, the question will come down to who is successful at supplying the media as well as creating the conversation.
The online news and media will be a very interesting space over the next few years. Newspapers already feel the heat from the online market and the massive amount of competition, so it will be interesting to see who can step up and create an engaging experience that lasts. If the USA Today redesign creates the community that they are looking for, they may be way ahead of the game in terms of market share. Either way, something to keep an eye on.
