40 Questions: Who Should Run Your News Website?
June 9th, 2008 | by Brad King |
Image by Pretre via Flickr
The high profile split between part of the Washington Post’s digital team and the paper has certainly sparked a conversation. There seems to be two camps: those (like me) who see this is another colossal failure on the part of traditional media and those who believe the experiment failed because of the digerati running the show.
I’ve worked at three different places — online, television and a magazine — where I was either in charge of, or a part of, building a unique brand of content separate from what we did (online, I worked with audio in 2000; at the cable network, we developer user-created content; and at the magazine, I built a daily, online news website) and at each stop I had the exact same conversations.
I’ve even had some of those same conversations again the past few days.
There is a sense, at least in the traditional media world (and the online news source was run by a traditional print editor who I happened to like very much), that the Web doesn’t fundamentally change things and that the knowledge people have in the online world doesn’t fit with the idea that the Web doesn’t fundamentally change things.
It’s quite maddening.
I wrote about the Innovator’s Dilemma in May, but I felt the need to revisit the conversation because so many people have chimed in on this Washington Post case — but many (and possibly myself included) shouldn’t be chiming in.
The simple truth is this: traditional journalists have no business making decisions about how the web and digital properties should be developed; they should certainly be at the table, helping inform the decisions of those who know best (and knowing best doesn’t mean reading a traffic report or surfing the blog with their RSS Reader), but the decisions need to be left in the hands of those who get the emerging field.
Sound harsh? Maybe it is. But I know — and I’m thankful — that my magazine editor never invited me in to discuss how we should lay out the book because frankly, other than a layman’s opinion, I had no idea how the damn thing should look.
If I ever went into him and said “Jason, I read magazines all the time. I love magazines. Here’s what you should do because that’s how I like them,” he would have fallen out of his chair. Why? Because it’s silly to design a magazine based on my use even though I’ve been reading magazines since before I was online in 1984.
There is a language and an expectation that people have. I know this because experts in the industry have told me so (and there is a common language because we know where to go to find features –> the middle — the commentary –> the end — the TOC –> the beginning — the short news –> just after the TOC.
Yet we assume online is easy because, well, everybody surfs.
Wrong. If newspapers assume that they can train a copy editor to run a news site, they really will fade into the sunset as technologically innovative sites come along.
Listed below are 40 questions that determine whether you know enough to make decisions about a newspaper website.
What I’ve listed below are some of the questions I had to answer — in some part — during the interview process I went through at Technology Review. There’s a reason that site is successful now. Some of it was me. Some of it was the smart folks around me. Much of it was the fact that we — after much debate — deferred to those with most knowledge, whether it be marketing, editorial, financial or online.
For all the things we did wrong, that was the one we did right. There’s a reason the site has seen an explosion of growth in both revenues and users.
Here are some questions you need to be able to answer. And not the type of answer that begins “I think” or “this is my experience. If you can’t answer these questions (and I’m sure there are more) with relative certainty, then you should have a team of people who you defer to — and then you should listen to them:
- how do online ecologies develop
- what types of software are needed to do the job
- what types of hardware
- which do we buy, which do we build, how do you know the different
- how are communities built online (and the 8 rules that all communities have, thank you very much research)
- what does a community manager do
- how do they do that
- why do they do that
- how content management systems work
- what parts of the company should be in that CMS
- how money is made online
- name 5 ways to actually make money online that does include selling a banner or sponsorship
- what are the formulas that you can deploy across multiple units to build a profitable website (thank you business folks)
- what does a five-year business plan include online
- how do you develop metrics for something that isn’t built
- why are traffic spikes bad
- how traffic and advertising patters work
- what types of partnerships are profitable and what types hamstring you
- how databases should be constructed to maximize the data
- why don’t print and online eat each other
- when do you use subscription walls
- how do you conduct a usability test
- how is that different than market research and magazine usability tests
- who in the heck does these
- what is the difference between a web designer and a graphic designer
- what skills/languages should my programmers have
- what skills should my producers have
- what is the best format for audio and video; and what does that have to do with the software and hardware I buy
- how long does it take to shoot, edit and post a 5-minute video
- how long does it take to shoot, edit and post a 5-minute audio
- how long does it take to build a web page or a Flash graphic
- how many servers, at minimum do you need for proper development
- who handles service if they system breaks at 3 am (who do you want answering the phone)
- What browser do you backwards develop to
- What should your load time for your page be
- What should your mobile page include
- What is your policy on linking
- What’s the max size for audio
- what’s the max size for video
- what’s the max size for advertisements
3 Responses to “40 Questions: Who Should Run Your News Website?”
By LK Mirrer on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
Quite a list. Certainly, many ideas of importance here.
Do you believe, however, that each of these has a specific answer?
I see quite a few where the best answer would be “it depends.”
And, I’m curious as to how many questions one must be able to answer in order to “earn” a spot at the discussion table…
By Brad King on Jun 11, 2008 | Reply
@LK
Brilliant question. I think each one does (although you are MORE than correct that some of them do have ‘it depends’ answers — and hopefully if you’re running a site, you’ve made those choices).
I’m in a unique position to answer those questions because 1) I wrote them :) and 2) I have been in charge of a site where those answers needed to happen.
I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I know all the answers. Circ and marketing — e gads. I had to learn from those folks smarter than me.
But I knew enough to know 1) what questions needed to be asked and 2) who I could find to answer the questions.
When I was interviewed, I spent a full day and a half outlining my strategy — with business plan — for building our site. I went in with a plan.
It wasn’t something we just “made up” because that’s the way we surfed.
The fact that you would ask — it depends — my follow up would be: how would you do this? why? what structurally would that look like?
Everything depends. We had a multitude of financial levers (per my publisher’s intelligent request) so that IF and WHEN something didn’t work, we could make that up somewhere else.
Astute question and response. Knowing what you don’t know — 90 percent of the battle I think.