Content Matters

Traditional publishers have largely struggled to embrace web 2.0. That’s not surprising and in some ways sitting on the sidelines might be the right strategy for many of them. At the same time, every publishing conference has an obligatory “web 2.0” session, though many are light on ways for publishers to really engage their audience using social strategies.

This week, I attended Marketing Sherpa’s Selling Online Subscriptions.  The conference was very good, overall, and was filled with specific ideas for improving customer acquisition and retention rates. Of course, there was a Web 2.0 panel, with Oz Sultan (who left the Economist a few weeks ago to join professional services firm Tacit Knowledge) and Jamie Steven of Real Networks and moderated by SEO-PR CEO Greg Jarboe.

Oz  was a strong panelist and shared examples of what they’d done at the Economist, deploying their Debate series, which allowed them to get sponsorship for this interactive forum, developing a Facebook widget for their fan page and more. Jamie shared examples of Real Networks efforts (some successful, others less so) to engage their audience by allowing them to create and share playlists with friends and family. He also shared how their initial efforts to develop a Facebook app have been less successful than they’d hoped and how they’re now partnering with an as-yet-unnamed partner with great Facebook penetration (Slide, perhaps?) for a co-branded widget.

The session was pretty good, but then they got to the question of “what can publishers do to embrace Web 2.0”?  The first response, from Jamie, was “launch a blog”. This is the same advice I’ve heard from web 2.0 panelists for the past few years.

But my question is “Are blogs really a web 2.0 strategy”?

To me, Web 2.0 is all about connectivity, collaboration, engagement and community. While blogs can be a part of that, for the most part publisher blogs become a one-way communication platform; they’re a bullhorn. Most publishers use blogs as a means of posting editorials online but they tend to generate little or no comments.

Oz had other suggestions that I think were more relevant – open up your content and create a mashup with Google maps or do something to generate more value out of your content.

So, by all means publishers, launch a blog. In fact, launch several. But don’t consider that a Web 2.0 strategy.