Leaderboard for 2-9-2009: Crowdsourcing edition

This week’s Leaderboard focuses on crowdsourcing and interacting with readers.

A beat blog is a great way to find out what people are thinking, and unlike the print edition that may run a few thoughts from readers, a beat blog can allow anyone to comment. Plus, users can interact with each other, share links and debate topics.

A beat blog is also a great way to ask readers what they would like you to cover. Want to know what your readers think? Ask them.

Jon Ortiz | Sacramento Bee

• Ortiz is using his blog to crowd source opinions on what it’s like to be back after a day of being furloughed. Due to the budget crisis in California, it’s mandatory for state workers to take several furlough days. Ortiz wants to know what morale is like now that furloughs have officially begun.
• This blog post has been a sounding board for state workers who were furloughed. The post itself is interesting because of all the comments that users have left. It doesn’t take a lot of effort for Ortiz to ask a simple question about morale, but this post has yielded a lot of good information.
• The post will also help Ortiz create more content. He can take the best comments and make a new blog post or print story with them. He can also ask in a few weeks how morale is after employees receive their first reduced paychecks. He can then compare and contrast comments left this week with comments left after employees receive their smaller paychecks.
• A beat blog makes it much easier for a reporter to write stories like these. Before the Web, Ortiz could have contacted a few state workers and used their opinions for stories. After the story was published, additional state workers could write in. But with Ortiz’s beat blog, anyone can comment, and this post has led to a wide swatch of state workers form different departments commenting on how morale is.
• People are much more willing to share their stories when we make it easy for them. It’s much easier to leave a comment after a blog post than it is to find a newspaper’s number, call the newspaper and try to get a hold of an individual reporter.

John A. Bryne | BusinessWeek

• “What’s Your Story Idea?” gives BusinessWeek.com readers the chance to have a direct impact on the publication’s coverage. Editor-in-Chief John A. Byrne reviews reader comments and then assigns them to journalists. When the story goes live, the reader gets the credit.
• Each week at least one story pitched by a reader is assigned to a BusinessWeek staffer.
• Bryne also provides feedback to stories pitched by users, “As Editor-in-Chief of BusinessWeek.com, I’ll respond to your suggestions just as I do to my own reporters. ‘Tom, that’s a brilliant and original idea with importance significance to our readers.’ Or, ‘Frank, I’ve read that story a hundred times. What can you possibly add that’s new?’”
• This feature is not only good for unearthing new and interesting story assignments, but it’s also a good way to get user feedback on existing content. Is BusinessWeek covering the stories that its readers are interested in? Why not just ask?
• This sums up what BusinessWeek and Bryne are trying to accomplish: “User engagement. That’s what we believe in.” User engagement is a must to succeed on the Web.

Gene Sloan | USA Today

• Sloan is live blogging all week from the Carnival Fantasy cruise. His live blogging is cool enough, but Sloan is also engaging users in the comments section after his posts and answering questions.
• Sloan is living blogging this week so he can report on, “What’s it like to sail on one of the refurbished Fantasy Class ships? I’ll be on board the Fantasy for the next five days as it cruises to Mexico, posting my impressions and answering your questions (leave them in the comment area below).”
• As he leaves impressions throughout the day, users have been leaving comments and asking questions. Sloan has been responding to their questions and trying out some of their suggestions (which activities to try, what to eat, etc).
• Before the Web and live blogging, Sloan could have ridden a cruise ship for a week and written a story about his experiences. Now he can post updates and photos throughout the course of his trip and interact with users along the way. The ability for users to leave comments and suggestions makes this form of journalism much more interactive and engaging for users.