With all media getting digital, building online community around the contents is crucial to attract and keep audience!
Here is a quick look at these different websites and exam how they build online communities around contents.
(1) The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/
In March 2010 Issue of the Atlantic, you may find Monster of Marriage, with a huge cartoon!
On this page, you will find tools for sharing: email this article, subscribe to email newsletter, or print it out,and you can share with anyone you like, by Facebook, or Twitter, or other popular tools.
You may also find links to relevant contents, like "Pride and Prejudice" which links to Amazon online store. Here, I wonder, if the Atlantic has some agreement with Amazon for this service, as the link takes readers away from its own website to Amazon!
But when you clink www.the atlanticwire.com, it has much more information with all different kinds of links involving readers to build community, for example, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of ObamaCare", which is one of the "Hot Topics", providing many tools right next to the topic, such as Email, Facebook and Twitter, Digg and more. At the bottom of the article, you can comment, even as "guest", which makes it easier to engage readers, without the trouble of registering!! Registering might be necessary, but isn't it annoying from reader's point of view?
(2) Huffington Post, the online-only news organization, has built a more complex website, utilizing all the tools available to its community building.
The latest development is called "Huffington College" on its "FRONTPAGE" with 9 huge pictures of students who are "Majoring in Debt". When you click it, you come to "Share Your Story: Majoring In Debt". Every webpage has provided popular tools to you to communicate online!and you know how many people have retwitted or shared the story on Facebook!
But if you want to "PARTICIPATE", you need to register first, and then you can share yours!Registering is so easy-with your accounts of either Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo! Convenience is just what readers need in today's fast-paced life!
You can vote the photo, if you are photo fans, or you probably like/dislike the folks in the pictures! Huffington gives you a chance to speak out your mind!
If you have more time to express yourself, you may share your reaction by choosing from "Amazing, Inspiring, Funny, Scary, Hot, Crazy, Important, Weird"
And report Corrections if you find problems.
If you use iPhone,iPod, you can get Huffington Post Mobile
(3) Even government websites like the White House, provide more interactive functions with the audience.
The President's Office website offers blogs, with online chat from time to time, Monday afternoon, Feb. 22, 2o10, for example, you can join the live chat.
On its homepage, you may share its contents with your accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, Youtube, iTune, Vimeo, and so on.
You may also download video clips of the President's speeches or weekly address.
But there is no function for visitors to comment on the White House webpage contents, for reasons I have no clue.
In this case, I would say, there is no real community on the President's webpage. But you may find the President's official Twitter account,and I follow him when he twitted Georgetown vs Duke basketball game on snowy Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010!
(4) Now let's take a look at commercial website, Food & Wine, and how it build a community online around commercial contents.
This is a beautifully designed website, with lots of good tastes and flavors for most people. It offers you an opportunity to get 2 RISK-FREE Issues of its magazine.
It has a F&W Blog sphere, and F&W Community, where you can rate the recipes, and share with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or other tools.
Related Recipes are also just a click away, engaging you to stay longer, with watering "virtual foody"!
What is most impressive is its "Recipe Video", where you can learn how to cook your favorite dishes from top chefs! A virtual cooking classroom with multimedia technologies-FREE!
When you travel, you may find your favorite restaurants in other parts of the country and the world, by visiting Restaurants and Travel. In Washington, DC, for example, you may find your restaurants, and THINGS TO DO. But there is one thing, at least, for improve: an interactive map should be provided, with either Google Map, or Yahoo, or whatever, for convenience of finding the direction to that restaurant in a not-so-familiar city, in most cases for travelers!
Well, that's my exploration! This is an endless journey to a perfectly designed website for building a community online around its contents, news or whatever...
Thanks for your time visiting my blog, a trial project and appreciate your comments!
Putting it all together
15 years ago