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#MozNewsLab final project: IncentivEyes

August 7, 2011 – 6:01 pm

An introduction to IncentivEyes

IncentivEyes is a toolkit for augmenting and incentivizing user engagement on news websites using a news organization’s existing resources. Take a look at the narrated introduction:

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Prototypes

Each slide demonstrates the main user-facing components of IncentivEyes. (Click below for image descriptions.)

Incentive toolkit - Streams

Incentive toolkit - Streams
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The first part of the incentivEyes engagement toolkit is the follow functionality, which provides users the opportunity to follow tags, categories, commenters, sections, etc. This activity is channeled into a "Streams" section, where the user can browse activity and create custom alerts and RSS feeds. Each click earns the user points.

The IncentivEyes pieces

User-facing surfaces

The user-facing “surfaces,” which consist of the latest user interface idioms, improve the browsability of news items, help the user customize their news consumption, and provide (as needed) new points of contact for the user to “click on something.” These surfaces include:

  • a “hover hox”that lets the user mouse over stories and interact (see prototype)
  • “follow” buttons for topics, tags, authors, commenters, sections, etc.
  • a “streams” section where the user can organize the items he/she follows and create custom streams and RSS
  • A “points” counter that can be implemented on the homepage or in navigation
  • A “deals box” (either as a hover box or dedicated page) where the user can redeem points to unlock deals
  • other user interactions that can be developed and rolled out at a later date

The administrative backend

The news organization has control over what portions of the user-facing surfaces are implemented on their site. Through a user interface accessible to relevant teams, employees can set point values for each user activity, set point redemption rates, and upload deals.

All of these tools could be made available on an open-basis and customized for every implementation.

How the perks work

Users don’t need to make any behavioral changes in order for IncentivEyes to work, because the engagement scoring (points accumulation) happens for tasks the user would be doing on the site anyway.

The news organization can assign variable point values to various user activities or milestones, such as adding a story to a “read later” queue, commenting, following authors, topics, etc. The user can then “cash in” these accumulated points to unlock discounts, “Groupon-style” promotions or any other kinds of deals.

For example, a logged-in user might earn:

  • 2 points for every story link he/she clicks on
  • 5 points for every comment he/she leaves
  • 10 points for every “called out” comment he/she earns
  • 20 points for every new author, category, or tag he/she follows
  • 25 points for every uploaded photo, “iReport,” etc.

Once the user has, say, 50 points saved, he/she could then spend 10 points to unlock a deal. The exact values for unlocking/redeeming deals can also be defined by the company.

This creates new ad revenue opportunities for the news organization as well as fun, relevant and unobtrusive deals for the user – all while encouraging the user to engage more with their favorite news site. It’s a win for everybody!

So what?

IncentivEyes increases user engagement while providing an opportunity for monetization; many groups of people stand to benefit from a product like this:

Who benefits

  • The people responsible for making sure their news organization is in fact a viable business
  • Users looking for deals
  • Users who like additional ways of interacting with their favorite news site
  • Users who are competitive and enjoy things that are like games
  • Users who like the idea of being rewarded for activities they’d be doing anyway
  • Journalists who like it when users click on their stories
  • Journalists who like it when users follow them or the topics they cover

Some considerations

  • Portions of incentivEyes could possibly be implemented with gamification APIs such as Gamify or BigDoor or leverage them for it’s own API
  • Absolutely no part of the incentivEyes concept requires the newsroom to directly collaborate with sales, though there may be an opportunity for ethical collaboration in setting activity point values and point redemption rates.
  • The user-facing elements are designed to be intuitive and make consuming news easier. While backend administrative tasks can also be accomplished via a simple user interface, administrators may require a few hours of training before they feel comfortable setting point values and uploading deals.
  • In order to combat “gaming” of the point system, some precautionary measures would need to be implemented. These would include but aren’t limited to: requiring users to register for an account, confirming some activities with a Captcha system, etc.
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Tools won’t cause the newsroom culture shift, but their creation is part of the process

July 31, 2011 – 7:53 pm

As Shazna Nassa, Director of Interactive at the Associated Press, pointed out in the seventh Learning Lab lecture, the process of getting to that kind of collaboration in newsrooms depends on the leadership creating spaces for innovation by merging silos, working closely with change agents and taking other organizational steps to strengthen and formalize technology as well as encourage both hybrid and specialized skills

Or, maybe you’d prefer Daniel Bachhuber’s take on newsroom change, which argues for subverting newsroom culture by advocating for changes regardless where you are in an organization.

Whether it’s through visionary leadership or ground-up change, the shift from legacy newsroom notions to tech-saavy ones is years in the making and still far from a widespread fact of life; the news industry still faces the prickly challenge of making itself profitable enough to attract and build strong tech teams, and perhaps faces an even greater challenge in the relative lack of true media-tech hybrids out there for the plucking. In any case, digital products and tools can certainly facilitate collaboration in a newsroom or any other workplace, though no tool single-handedly does this.

This cultural problem that Nassa and Bachuber speak of extends beyond the newsroom, and is in fact a PRE-employment cultural challenge that universities (and more informal places of learning, like MoJo) must pursue by explicitly encouraging the fusion of technology- design-, social entrepreneurship- and civic media skill sets. Indeed, setting up newsrooms for successful collaboration is also a question of organizational socialization, in particular as it concerns the organization’s ability to hire effectively, develop a guiding vision and generate effective leaders. Fellow Learning Labber Chris Keller also hits on this with some related ideas for fostering a creative, collaborative environment.

So to this point: Where does my project fit in the context of a newsroom culture and its workflow? My project Streams takes into account newsroom collaboration into account in the sense that

  • it places as little burden as possible on news producers, since the focus with this project is on creating a project that enhances the user experience of consuming news.
  • it connects users with the topics, tags, authors and commenters they care about. Like Learning Labber Trina Chiasson realizes for her project without directly saying so, and Juan Gonzalez notes outright, the most crucial and fundamental collaboration that happens in newsrooms is that between journalists and the beats/communities they cover. The better the user can follow/connect with the content of specific authors, the better the opportunities to collaborate – Streams does this by adding yet another way to read, interact and provide feedback on content.

Neither my tool, nor any other tools that emerge from #MozNewsLab will preempt the fundamental cultural shift, but the PROCESS of the tool’s creation can most certainly be part of that shift. I hope every Fellowship winner approaches the most grizzled, tech-averse reporter in the newsroom, lays down some prototypes, and asks: “Do you get this? And how can I make it better?”

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Of hackers and ‘Streams’ sketches

July 24, 2011 – 7:28 pm

Another productive week in #MozNewsLab.

JQuery creator John Resig offered advice in the context of open source projects, and I think much of that advice could be applied to products that aren’t necessarily open source: Having a strong homepage, removing barriers to using and understanding your product, monitoring community, and following up with large users – I’d want to do these with my product, whether it is The Next Open Source Project or The Next Gardenia Scented Bar of Soap. And Chris Heillmann has me convinced that all future Web adventures should be developed with open standards like HTML5. We’re talking about creating digital news products here, and most of us can agree that information – as well as the way it is displayed and how we interact with it – should not be shackled to a device or caged within proprietary products. I dig it, and I dig the treasure trove of HTML5 resources he dropped on the lecture.

The quest continues to find the best problem to solve with this final product proposal. As promised, I’ve continued by sketching another little idea…let’s call it “Streams.”

So, I thought I’d use Adaptive Path Co-founder Jesse James Garrett’s “elements model” to hold up loosely against this next sketch. Obviously this is the dramatically abridged version, and as Garrett points out, this isn’t a model for the process of developing a digital product. But I think it’s a good way to check and see in the most general terms what pieces are missing from the puzzle of bringing this next idea into the Realm of Things That Exist.

Here goes.

Strategy. The “streams” offer the news site a way to engage users by having them “follow” authors, topics, tags, and other users. There are some opportunities here to “gamify” this tool. But what incentive does this offer the news site? Basically, I still need to connect the dots between the tool and how it can positively affect a site’s bottom line.

Scope. Since the idea as I understand it is to create a tool that is by some definition “open source,” the challenge becomes: Can news sites monetize this? And can a tool like this be implemented easily on sites, regardless of CMS, etc? Need to figure this out.

Structure. A wee bit of this has happened in the sketch. Need more.

Skeleton. As we know from last week’s lectures, sketching out interface elements help communicate the concept better than aggressive hand gesturing and vocalizations. But still, there are dozens of bits and pieces of the Skeleton that can only be fleshed out once the Strategy, Scope and Structure have been dealt with more thoroughly. Many iterations ahead!

Surface. I like to jump straight to this one, too. Appealing to the senses (paying attention to color, etc.) is another powerful tool in selling an idea, but these would need to change with virtually every implementation of the tool to match the host site.

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One small step for Prototype Kind

July 16, 2011 – 3:07 pm

Okay. So. I have this idea for a Firefox plugin that helps users find consensus on Web video. I have this other idea for an open-source platform for layering apps onto Web video. And then there’s this other thought I’ve been toying around with: A simple little “peek” hoverbox for news stories that would give a peek at stats, comments, etc. for a story without requiring the user to click through to a news story page. On top of those, there are about three other swirly, nebulous concepts that, if I can quickly find something sturdier than my skull to bang my head against, are bound to shake loose and spill out into into a HTML/Illustrator document over these next few weeks.

I’ve noticed that the challenge isn’t coming up with problems or ideas. My challenge: Once I identify problems, how do I know which is the BIGGEST and BEST problem to tackle for the purposes of the Lab? Help, please, great pasta mass in the sky!

The Mozilla Learning Lab lectures of the past week (not to mention the colorful user chat) has offered some insight as to how I might go about getting to that best idea. First, as Aza Raskin points out, getting to the really good stuff is all about understanding the problem and creating a space for rapid iteration.

Taking Aza’s advice of busting out the core concepts of the prototype in a day, I decided to tackle the most outward-facing portion of that first little hoverbox idea (please don’t sue, Boston.com). This hoverbox addresses several problems for users: It creates opportunities for engagement and makes news consumption and sharing easier. For the client website, it creates monetization opportunities through users’ mouse hovers and clicks. There is much more thinking to be done, here, obviously.

So, I’m one iteration of one prototype towards answering my own question about which of the things rattling around in my head tackles the biggest and best problems, and sadly, that doesn’t feel like much progress, considering these are just the problems and ideas I’ve thought of so far, my brain is sometimes feeble, and I don’t exactly have the research resources to uncover the biggest, most wicked problems of the digital sphere.

Hmm. So where does that leave me? Why, I think it leaves me with Bert Herman’s checklist. Follow your passion? Check. What can I say? I dig the news. And I dig making cool stuff. Build a community? I feel like I’m 60-some people closer to that than a week ago, for sure...so check! Build a team? Um, I think I can mark that one as “work in progress.” Just build it? Um, no. But one prototype closer! Listen to your users? Um, no. But once I get some users, I’m all ears. Promise! Stay flexible? I’ll do my best!

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Gay fonts!

December 12, 2010 – 8:00 pm

THIS IS A GAY FONT.

Just kidding, its a browser-defined sans-serif. But seriously. If wingdings, baskervilles and lucidas get their own fonts, why not the three or four percent of the population for those whose love dare not speak its name? This should come preloaded on every computer.

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‘His and His’ bath towels

December 12, 2010 – 7:47 pm

Give the gays in your life the gift of pat-dry skin this holiday season. I kinda wish these ‘His and His’ bath towels I found over at Two Grooms were a bit more skanky. I mean, isn’t that font just Helvetica? This not the font of gay innuendo, thank you very much. At least throw on some Georgia italic on there. I mean, on the scale of gay fonts…hmm. Wait a minute. I feel a Bad Thought coming on.

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Bad thoughts from around the web

December 9, 2010 – 2:54 pm

Undersea nukes to get to the moon. That is all. – Dvice

If you were a dead celebrity legendary for heavy partying ways, would you want Florida tarnishing your hard-earned, posthumous reputation? – Palm Beach Post

Project #1 with the Nixon tapes soon to be released on the public: a profanity infographic! – CNN

Hire this copywriter! – Gizmodo

In-book advertising for Google e-books? – VentureBeat

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Bad thought: Really fruity fruit

December 9, 2010 – 2:41 pm

Mmm. Chayote. Tastes like needles.

Some foods of nature tempt. Others just sit there with their alien lizard skin, as gaze back with their eyeless little faces as though they never want to be eaten. Agriculture Guide has a list of 15 such bizarre fruit and vegetable curiosities, things with charming and appetizing names like ‘goatsbeard’ and ‘soursop’. I’m sure they are all really delicious…or at least flavorful enough to inspire enough curiosity to pop one or two in your mouth if it were put in front of you.

Which leads me to the bad thought. How the hell do I go about sampling all these crazy creations of nature? Perhaps, what is needed, is a members club for exotic foods…where you can get access to, and exchange recipes for soursops and snake fruit and the like. There must be a way to do this without prompting a USDA investigation…

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Bad word of the day: ‘Youthenize’

December 8, 2010 – 12:44 pm

youthenize –verb, to use digital effects technology to turn aging actors into their former, supple skin selves, esp when trying to maximize box office receipts

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Story Starter: Hemophilia

December 8, 2010 – 9:58 am

“He doesn’t gush blood. If he got cut, he would bleed at the same rate as a normal person. But he would bleed that way for days. It might never stop.”

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