Hosting the conversation
Can newspapers create value in hosting the community conversation? Can this be a component of a premium site experience to keep out the riff-raff.
Like many content producers we offer comments on articles as a sign that we are with it and care about what our community has to say. Like most we have ignorant and meaningless interactions that kill real conversation.
I pose the question, can we create value through hosting meaningful community interactions. The vision of the web as a community is often mired by the reality that the most ignorant people seem to have the most time on their hands. This is evident in the comments on our website, in forums and throughout the social web.
Creating walled gardens of conversation about meaningful local topics with intelligent people may be attractive to those who are interested in true debate and community action. Letters to the editor have always been a role of the newspaper. Could our websites redefine how that relationship works by creating a community where there is open dialogue that stays on point and is meaningful.
There are companies right now, attempting to rethink forums and online discussions. “Gravity,” created and backed by the original creators of myspace is about to release a platform helps you discover and participate in conversations about whatever you care about.
” The “Gravity” universe is made up of hundreds (soon thousands) of worlds — each world a hotbed of laser-focused conversations where users can jump into the fray and speak their minds. Users can choose to orbit (aka “follow”) worlds, conversations and people so that they can stay in tune with conversations as they evolve. Gravity gives every user a voice to share their thoughts, opinions and experiences and a new way to learn from others.”
They are branding their core technology as “a conversation engine” — and will be releasing special web software that powers conversation on gravity.com and in their own words (soon) all over the web. This is something to keep an eye on.
As a media company, we could offer local knowledge and authority to enhance these conversations.
Gravity will be in the wild shortly, but the “rules” they have established clearly outline their direction and the job to be done they are trying to fulfill.
Gravity is about quality conversation. The quality of content on Gravity is based on the collective contributions of our users (i.e., you!). You contribute to Gravity by starting conversations and replying to conversations, by orbiting worlds, conversations and people, and by liking, hiding and flagging content. In order to make Gravity’s conversations better and more valuable for everyone, we encourage you to do all of these things!
Gravity has a few simple rules meant to keep our service interesting, fun and useful for everyone:
* Engage in meaningful conversation!
* Be respectful of others. Some conversations are bound to turn into debates and some debates will end in arguments. It’s okay… When this happens, be nice! We’re all entitled to our own opinion, BUT we’re not entitled to be mean to or disrespectful of others, no matter how right we are. Gravity does not tolerate personal attacks, predatory language, and harassment of any type. So don’t do it.
* Stay on topic. Off-topic contributions pollute the conversation for everyone. Posting off-topic will hurt your reputation on Gravity. On the bright side, the Gravity universe is large and there’s almost certainly a world out there where your contributions will be treasured.
* Keep it clean. No pornographic or sexually explicit content allowed. No profane or hateful speech will be tolerated.
* Keep it real. No spamming, no advertising, and no solicitation. No impersonating others. No intentionally misguiding people.
* Use common sense. If your mother would shake her head disappointedly, then you should probably not be doing it.
If job to be done is to make the conversation meaningful and relevant. Our local knowledge and experts in various areas uniquely positions us better to host this conversation. The would require an unpresidented commitment of moderation and participation from our reporters, and “promotion” of meaningful points in a greater community forum like the newspaper.
This is also an area of potential for us to leverage our community relationships – having moderators get answers to questions or engage community leaders in the discussion. People can have various opinions but don’t want to have intelligent conversation result in harassment by ignorant comments.
The walled garden approach is emerging in all aspects of internet life, and the gardens are getting more focused in nature. Facebook is walled garden of sorts, when compared to services like Twitter. However, one of the problems with Facebook is that most of the things you share through it go to everybody you have friended, whether those people are relatives, tennis buddies, coworkers, or your boss. But few people want to share everything with everyone they know.
Google Wave itself has been touted as a solution for “over-sharing” in the social web, choosing what groups of contacts you share conversations with.
No company is better positioned to host a meaningful conversation locally than us.
