Podcast: Buzz Out Loud on podcasting and beatblogging

This week’s podcast is a joint interview with three of the minds and voices behind CNET’s Buzz Out Loud — Tom Merritt, Natali Del Conte and Jason Howell (Monday co-host Molly Wood was unable to make the interview).

Buzz Out Loud may be an audio (and video) podcast, but it utilizes many of the same techniques that beatbloggers use. In fact, Buzz Out Loud is one of the first major instances of a mainstream media outlet utilizing two-way communication and interaction as a major part of their work. If you listen to Buzz Out Loud, you’ll realize that without its listeners, the show is not possible.

“They are essential,” Merritt said about the show’s listeners. “That is what makes the show. It has been that way from the beginning.”

Buzz Out Loud, for those unfamiliar with the show, is a daily tech news podcast that mixes news and commentary together. Listeners of the show send in tips every day for stories they think the co-hosts should discuss. Listeners also send in e-mails and voicemails, the best of which are read or played on the show.

Many journalism organizations have begun podcasting in the past few years, often with mixed or little success. Buzz Out Loud is a show that anyone who wants to start a podcast should listen to. Many journalists, especially newspaper journalists, don’t harness the medium properly when first starting a podcast.

These podcasts are often dull and dispassionate. What may work for a newspaper, may not work for a podcast. A large part of Buzz Out Loud’s success is due to the passion its co-hosts have.

Building a community with user interaction

User interaction is the key, however, to Buzz Out Loud’s success. Listeners feel a part of a community, and it’s co-hosts are easy to get a hold of. The show accepts voicemails, e-mails, has a forum and its co-hosts can be found on a variety of social networks.

“When we started we had no idea what people were going to like,” Merritt said. “We decided to build in as a much user feedback as possible so that we could listen to people.”

User feedback has caused Buzz Out Loud to evolve over time. The show started as a short five-minute, every-other-day podcast and has morphed into a daily audio/video podcast that runs around 40 minutes. This transformation happened because listeners said they wanted more, and the show has always tried to be what its listeners wanted it to be.

That may not sound revolutionary, but most journalists don’t really listen to readers on what kind of content they be should producing. But for a show like Buzz Out Loud that is so much about interaction and building a community, listening to users is essential. As more journalists embark into social media and beatblogging, it will be important for them to listen to their users.

This doesn’t mean Buzz Out Loud is entirely dictated by its users. The show combines user feedback with the co-hosts’ editorial judgment. We’ve seen this from other beatbloggers like Eric Berger, and it has worked well.

“It’s more of an art more than a science, but you want to listen to that audience all the time, take the temperature of that and kind of inform that with your own judgment,” Merritt said. “If you just did it democratically, and said ‘okay people vote on the stories’, the show wouldn’t be as good.”

Users send in tips about tech news each day, and the show’s co-hosts pick which stories to discuss. If the same news item is sent in several times by various listeners, Merritt said that means it is something that listeners want them to discuss. This has proven a good way to gauge the importance of a tech news story.

Continue…

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.

Leaderboard for week of 1-26-09: Participation

This week’s Leaderboard is all about participation.

We are featuring three distinct ways beat bloggers are getting their users involved and harnessing the collective intelligence of their communities. In today’s era of limited journalism resources, utilizing a knowledgeable user base just makes sense. Users are a tremendous asset and the best beat bloggers have learned to tap into their collective wisdom.

These beat bloggers have found ways to not only harness the wisdom of the crowd, but they have also succeeded in getting their users to participate. Participation is a big part of the Web, and these three beat bloggers offer distinct ways to get users involved.

Gene Sloan | USA Today

• Sloan made the Leaderboard this week for a cool feature of his, “Reader Tip of the Week.” Each week Sloan asks readers to send in tips on a cruise-related issue. This week he is looking for advice on going on a cruise with teenagers.
• There are some fantastic tips left by readers that help Sloan do his job better. One reader pointed out that certain cruise lines offer teen programs and suggested that people with teens avoid lines that do not offer teen programs.
• This weekly feature servers several purposes: It gets users involved and talking about issues, it taps into the wisdom of Sloan’s community and it serves to help Sloan report better. It’s also a very easy feature to produce.
• The best readers’ tips are put into the print edition of USA Today. A little bit of work can go a long way.

Etan Horowitz | Orlando Sentinel

• Horowitz is employing some networked journalism this week by asking users to report on Circuit City liquidation sales. Standard operating practice during a liquidation usually sees a store raise prices to MSRP before offering discounts. Few retailers attempt to sell items — sale or no — at MSRP.
• This means that a discount of 10 percent off, for instance, during liquidation might actually be more expensive than Circuit City was selling it for before liquidation.
• Prices and availability vary greatly per store during liquidation. One Circuit City may be barely discounting items because of brisk sales, while another may have begun deep discounting.
• Horowitz is asking users to report on the prices of items they see at their local Circuit City. He is also asking that they list which store they went to. Horowitz couldn’t do this all himself, but he is smartly employing the power of his users on his site to piece together this story.
• Horowitz’s users can help other users determine whether or not it is worth shopping at a particular Circuit City.
• Networked journalism is a great way to get users involved and to report on topics that a reporter couldn’t do alone.

Buzz Out Loud | CNET

• “Well actually” are two of the most famous words on this daily podcasts. Listeners write in to correct the hosts or to clarify tricky tech-related information.
• Covering a wide range of tech topics isn’t the easiest, and Buzz Out Loud’s vast, knowledgeable audience provides a lot of fact checkers to ensure accuracy.
• BOL’s Tom Merritt, Natali Del Conte, Molly Wood and Jason Howell know tech well, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t use some help in covering a broad and nuanced topic. Users send in tips and news stories every day that help BOL report on tech in a more efficient manner.
• Listeners also correct the hosts when they are wrong. It’s not often that one of the hosts is blatantly wrong, but many tech topics are extremely nuanced and can be hard for most people to get 100 percent right. The BOL gang may report on computer encryption, for instance, and the next day a computer security expert may call in to clarify a point or to add additional insight.
• This show is all about user participation because it wouldn’t be possible without a lot of help from listeners.

100 great blogs to inspire better beat blogging

PC Mag has a list of its 100 favorite blogs, and it’s a must check out for anyone who blogs and wants to become better.

Often the best way to improve at something is to study the best, and you can’t do much better then this list. Yes, many of these bloggers and blogs may not fit the beat blogging profile, but they are all outstanding blogs. Good blogging — let alone beat blogging — is quite a bit different than being a good newspaper reporter.

I would strongly recommend checking out non-news blogs as well. Inspiration doesn’t have to come from fellow journalists.

These blogs highlight a few fundamental truths of good blogging:

• Post variety — The best bloggers mix things up. Some posts are long, some are short, some are lists, some are polls and some are just photos with a little description. There are more options than just those, but you get the point. Newspaper writing can often be formulaic and designed to fill news holes. Blogging is nothing like that. If the best way to get your point across is to make a bulleted list than do that. Never try to make your content be something it isn’t.
• Interaction — The best bloggers interact, and interaction is a must for beat blogging. The biggest strength of the Internet is that it is two way. People can e-mail you, send you direct messages on Twitter, post comments on your blog, respond to your Seesmic videos and more. The best beat bloggers realize that their audience knows more than they do, and they harness that collective wisdom. 
• Be yourself — While blogging is different than writing for a newspaper, it doesn’t mean you should force yourself to be something you aren’t. I often see journalists new to blogging trying to be casual, write in first person, inject opinions and do other things they aren’t allowed to for a newspaper story. The problem is that it often feels forced. If you’re more comfortable writing in a third-person, objective style, than do it. You don’t have to be casual to be a good blogger. You don’t have to write in the first person from time to time to be a good blogger. You just have to be good at blogging and that means being yourself. I let the content dictate how I write. In time, most journalists will find their blogging voices, but my best advice is to drop all preconceived notions as to what blogging is and isn’t. 
• Visual aids — Good bloggers do more than just write. They also post other, more visual content. This could be photos, videos, charts, etc. Digital photo and video cameras are really cheap these days, and there is plenty of Creative Commons-licensed content available to use. Sites like Swivel make it incredibly easy to create gorgeous charts and graphs. And never, ever create a post about something visual (like a YouTube video) without at least linking to said content. This is the Web.
• User interface — Most of the most popular blogs are easy to navigate and are often visually appealing. A great design is entirely optional, but having a site that is easy to get around is a must. Less is often more. And a killer search engine is a must. If I know something is on your site and I can’t find it via your search engine than you’re doing something wrong. 

Hat tip to Will Sullivan for bringing this list to my attention on Delicious.

Leaderboard for week of 12-15-08: Asking users for help

Our users know more than we do.

In aggregate, the knowledge of our users far outstrips our own. This is a valuable asset for beat reporters. An asset, until the advent of the Web, that was hardly tapped into. 

This week’s Leaderboard is all about beat bloggers who are willing to admit that their users know more than they do. They’re willing to ask their readers for help.

Gene Sloan | USA Today

• Sloan was nominated for his post, “Who has a question for Holland America CEO Stein Kruse?“ 
• Sloan is giving his readers the opportunity to chat with industry CEOs in his “Chat with the Chief” feature. This is a great little feature that builds user loyalty, generates traffic and gets your users to ask a lot of interesting questions for you. Plus, this doesn’t take a ton of time to produce.
• The feature is pretty simple. Sloan finds industry people that his users would be interested in interacting with and invites them to come to his blog and answer questions from his users. His user post comments at the end of Sloan’s post, and the person that Sloan selects answers users’ questions in the comments section.
• This feature is open for three days and generates a lot of questions. It is also an interesting feature for people to read if they don’t have a question to ask. Plus, Sloan’s readers are knowledgeable people and ask interesting questions. 

Jon Ortiz | The Sacramento Bee

• This is the kind of short, little post that works perfect on the Web, but would make no sense in print.
• First, the post is linking to a colleagues story and generating more traffic for that content. His colleague wrote a story about how a California state legislator shifted campaign cash to a legal defense fund. Ortiz used that story as a springboard to his post asking for user opinions.
• Ortiz, however, primarily made this post to solicit user opinion and to get people talking. Starting conversations can be a good way to build a community. Also, Ortiz could use the comments he gets as the seeds for a new post.

Eric Berger | The Houston Chronicle 

• Berger is asking, “What would you ask … France’s chief climate negotiator?” Berger has the opportunity to interview France’s Brice Lalonde, and he wants his users to help him out.
• This is an excellent way for Berger to get his readers involved. Plus, Berger’s readers are very knowledgeable and many of them are scientists. They can provide him with some great questions to ask. Win-win.
• This is a great way for Berger to use the collective intelligence of his readers to think of great questions. At Beat Blogging, we use Twitter all the time to harness the wisdom of our users.

Leaderboard for week of 11-17-08: blog back edition

This week we examine some new ways to get people talking.

You’ll see some familiar faces and a new one. All three are beat bloggers worth flowingly on a daily basis. They have so many lessons to teach us all. 

We tackle cultivating communities and the wisdom of the crowd this week. Keep sending those nominees in!

Jon Ortiz | Sacramento Bee

• Ortiz recently launched a cool new feature, “blog backs.” It’s a great feature to spur better communication and conversations with users.
• This is how Ortiz describes blog backs: “review your thoughtful and provocative online comments, amplify points, answer questions, correct our mistakes and humbly accept your warranted criticism.”
• He takes good comments from users, elevates them and then responds to them. He also links back to the original post that spurred each comment. 
• This feature is a bit like hoisting comments. But the added twist of responding to and clarifying users comments makes this a much richer feature.

Brian Krebs | The Washington Post

Harnessing the wisdom of users at the Houston Chronicle

Not all users are created equal.

Some users know more than a reporter does about a given subject. In a traditional media world that wisdom would largely go unused. But innovative beat bloggers like Eric Berger, and his employer the Houston Chronicle, have found ways to harness the wisdom of their wisest users by giving them blogs.

The Chronicle has launched three “sphere” blogs, one on climate change, another on astronomy and space and the last one on evolution. What makes these blogs stand out is that the people writing them in many ways can be considered experts.

Atmo.Sphere is run by John Nielsen-Gammon, a Texas state climatologist, and Barry Lefer, a professor of climate change and atmospheric chemistry at the University of Houston.

Cosmo.Sphere is run by Justin Kugler, an engineer at NASA; Steve Clayworth, an amateur astronomer and Fritz Benedic, a professional astronomer. Each brings their own perspective on the cosmos and space exploration to the table.

Evo.Sphere is run by Steven Schafersman. He is a working scientist in the petroleum and environmental industries in West
Texas. He studied evolutionary
paleontology while he was working for his geology Ph.D. at Rice University.

None of these bloggers are paid, and you can sense the child-like enthusiasm they have for scientific topics in many of their posts, especially in the Cosmo.Sphere blog. Plus these bloggers know their stuff. They know their “beats” better than most beat reporters.

Take this post from Kugler about water on Mars. Plenty of news outlets and reporters broke the news of water being found on Mars, but Kugler outlines why it is important:

As an aerospace engineer working on human space flight and
exploration, the confirmation of water on Mars is important to me
because it means that we can utilize local resources to sustain human
missions to the Red Planet.  This proves that we can follow the “live
off the land” approach that Dr. Robert Zubrin has long advocated.  (I
first read The Case for Mars when I was in high school!)

With
water on the surface, we only have to carry what we need for the trip
itself – which translates into tremendous weight savings and, thus,
lower cost.  Martian water can be used for drinking, food preparation,
greenhouse irrigation, construction, and production of hydrogen and
oxygen.  We can, thus, make our own breathing air and rocket fuel using
local resources.

From a scientific perspective, the presence of
water on Mars is an important boon to the field of astrobiology.  We
are reasonably certain that Mars was a much wetter and warmer planet in
the past.  It may have been wet enough and warm enough for primitive
life, whose fossils human explorers might be able to find.

And yes, other users have responded well to the sphere blogs too. These blogs are generating comments and building community, just like Berger’s blog.

Berger is a very popular science blogger, and now he is flanked by three science blogs written by experts. This is the kind of niche, in-depth information that newspapers have traditionally not excelled at but makes a lot of sense on the Web.