Consumers, Consumers, Consumers

Umair writes:

Web 2.0 cannot live up to its (enormous) potential to create value that's structurally disruptive until and unless technologists understand consumer dynamics.

Same goes for online journalists.

Mashups are going to add a fantastic new dimension to news reports – but only when we figure out how consumers want to use them.

Michael Gartenberg and Barry Parr make a similar point in a recent Jupiter Poscast.  And Adam Green touches on it in this podcast from MashupCamp.

Every few weeks we’re seeing new examples of mashup journalism. This Dutch crime site is a good recent example.

But while sites like this demonstrate the potential for mashup journalism, they don’t fit consumption patterns the way articles, photos, videos – even podcasts – do.

How do we build mashups that are as intuitive and useful as traditional forms of content?

This is one of the questions we’re asking at Faneuil Media. We don’t have an answer yet. I don’t think anybody does.

Comments

[Joe Murphy]

Without data mashups are useless. There's plenty of data that streams through online news sites that hasn't been harnessed yet. Once online news sites figure out there is useful information they own that goes beyond the news article, the photo, the podcast and the blog entry ... when that happens we'll start seeing the new online journalism.