Network Based Papers

paper.li

The use of social media aggregation to publication has been around for some time.  One such example is the Swiss company Small River, whose Paper.Li  which takes your daily tweets and creates an online publication from them.

I have used this platform to segment thedigitalconsultant tweets into three distinct publications.  Paper.li also has edition control - daily, weekly or morning & evening.. With the rapid growth in tablets such as the iPAD, this format has many attractions for spreading your content still further.

There are four types of Twitter account based papers a user can create, and one Facebook account based:

1. Account Based Paper - a paper created on your Twitter account
2. Hashtag based Paper - a paper based on a #tag you want to follow
3. User List Paper - a paper based from a twitter user list
4. Create a Custom Newspaper - advanced options for customized Twitter newspapers
5. Facebook based papers - giving you the ability to create a paper based on simple search terms. These papers are created on public posts.

All of the above offer ample opportunities for event marketing and target segmentation.

LinkedIn Today

News today that another social network, LinkedIn, is taking this 'entry to journal' principal a step further. As it prepares to list publically, the company has upgraded its web site with a new feature, LinkedIn Today.

With more than 90 million professionals using its network it is certainly time to try and broaden the companies public appeal and try and boost user activity.

LinkedIn Today allows the user to tap into articles that are being shared by their connections or by people in their industries.

According to the company's media release LinkedIn Today informs you of the following:
1. What your connections and coworkers – people you know – are sharing.
2. What your industry peers are sharing
3. What stories are interesting to a wider audience, outside of your industry

Offering users a personalised news stream is seen as a way of encouraging users to spend more time on the site. Only time will tell if this is so.

Being able to see who followed a topic headline provides insight into LinkedIn users who share a link publicly.

This content distribution also points to the advantage of having your content propagated and shared, as opposed to spending money on online advertising.  Your messaging is not diluted and the reach potential is as great, or greater, for less cost.




So will LinkedIn Today prompt me to use the social network more often?  To be honest, I doubt it. I find Paper.li's functionality far more engaging with greater editorial control over what I wish to publish or view.

LinkedIn's niche is professional networking and while job seekers make full use of it, most of them will still get their news from other media sources, Facebook and the more immediate source Twitter.

Related articles

• LinkedIn launches social news product (reuters.com)
• LinkedIn launches personal news service (news.cnet.com)

Modern Modern Media Consumers Participate

This visualisation demonstrates just how significant the participatory nature of the the internet is.

Of the 61% who read their new online, 35 % actually contribute to the creation of the news, commented about it or used to social media to promote it to others.

The other point of interest is that people 'graze' for their news content and this is the nature of the medium.  Only 21% claim to routinely use one site for news and information.

These findings are hardly surprising given the development of the semantic web and the expectation people have to have the news come to them rather than to have to go searching for it.

Modern browsers all have the ability to subscribe to news and interest feeds so once a subscription has been set up the news follows the consumer rather than the other way around.  User 'portals' such as Feedly and aggregator sites and software make the ability to set up a personalised menu even easier.

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