Social media expert Chris Brogan shares an interesting observation – he noticed that USA Today looks kind of like an offline version of a micro-blog. He marveled at the paper’s ability to scale down to essential, quick data points, and says he’s been motivated to possibly re-design his site based on USA Today’s example. It may seem odd getting new ideas from such an “archaic” thing such as a newspaper, but it goes to show – you never know where inspiration will strike.
Brogan explains:
If you squint, and remove your “purist” filter, USAToday looks like a microblog. The paper has little bite-sized media bits, easily consumable, with nuggets of data that are useful and fast to absorb. CNN Headline News does the same thing. They work the short form news format, with fast info, quick data dumps, and as they are trying out lots of personable interactions, it’s even turning a bit two-way. (Not that long form is bad, and there should definitely be a place for lengthier journalistic work, but as a consumer, I believe we’re trending more towards the short info.)
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That’s an interesting observation. I always wondered why I liked reading the USA Today over lunch.
February 20th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Link is busted — it’s linking to http://www.psfk.com/2009/02/USAToday%20and%20Microblogging%20Offline as opposed to Chris’s blog.
February 21st, 2009 at 7:43 pm