San Jose Mercury News columnist and blogger Dan Gillmor says our readers know more than we do, which I think is often true. Tapping the collective brainpower of citizens is a lofty task, for sure, but one with tremendous potential for transforming the media and the way we get our information.
This is one of the many reasons there is such buzz these days around “participatory journalism” — the growing practice of non-journalists creating content for the masses. And one of the grandest and most successful experiments in this area, About.com, has just gotten better.
About.com is a massive collection of consumer-oriented columns and links written by an army of citizen journalists.
The site is built around a unique “guide” system. More than 475 topical advisors or “guides,” have dedicated their time and knowledge since the site started in 1997 to creating about one million pages of original content covering more than 55,000 topics, from parenting to personal finance; travel to technology; health & fitness to cars and trucks.
About.com claims that its “robust library of proprietary content” is the largest of its kind on the Web. The site was the 14th most visited website in March with 21.4 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen/Net Ratings.
Peter Horan, CEO of About.com, tells Click Z News that readers are increasingly going directly to articles on the site via search engines and links, rather than starting from the homepage. As a result, he said, the redesign attempts to make “every article page a front door for the site.” This means navigating around the site is much easier. This is a great lesson for all websites.
The relaunch is also aimed at helping owner Primedia increase revenues from the site by offering more targeted advertising related to the content users click on. From a users’ perspective, all this does is make the ads likely to be more pertinent, which isn’t such a bad thing.
Each guide’s main page has been turned into a weblog (powered by the popular Moveable Type software), which makes frequent updates easier, plus gives the site a more timely feel.
For each category, the site offers lists of essential related links in the right column, chosen by the guide. This is some of the most useful content on the site, great for researching subjects you’re unfamiliar with. In the right column, you’ll find a list of the Most Popular Articles in that category — an easy way to let other readers help you find the best content quickly.
At the bottom of each guide’s weblog, there’s a link to an RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication), which you can add to My Yahoo or a newsreader such as News is Free. (I’ll be writing more about RSS feeds and newsreaders in a future column).
Here’s a fun example of the type of content you’ll find from the guides: politicalhumor.about.com
About.com is a great site to look to for examples of how journalism organizations might tap readers’ knowledge and incorporate citizen journalists into their news sites.
And when you’re looking for information about something — particularly something consumer-oriented — About.com is a great place to start.
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- What websites do you find handy for finding information? Send them to: poynter (at) jondube.com
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