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Flickring the News

April 4, 2007


Flickring the News
Flickring the News is a thought experiment based on a design riddle we posed to ourselves not too long ago.

“What if,” we asked ourselves, “news sites were built for sharing instead of for telling?”

This is what evolved from that question.

What we hope we will demonstrate here is how any traditional online media site could effectively jettison the historic print layout model (aka the bath water).

In its place, we suggest using the design model of any successful social media site to give power to the reader and focus to the individual story instead of the home page. We think this amplifies the best features of news exchange and online community (aka the baby).

Please, share your comments below, after you’ve read our proposal here.

Posted by Travis Smith at 8:53 AM

Comments

Great, great idea!  I really like the concept of shared news that is inspired by individuals and shared with people who interact with the story and vision as it is presented.  Much nicer to be introduced to new ideas, features, and “events” from a social media base rather than just passively staring at a traditional news story online or in print.  I found this project through a contact I have on flickr who presented a sample mashup to illustrate and give the link to tickr.

By cobalt on Apr 4, 2007

A few more suggestions to go along with your great commentary:

* let people (writers / producers at the news outlet or participants) create personal remixes of the news, consisting of content contributed by themselves and created by others. A personal interpretation of the news that provides personal views.
* let people with an existing outlet (blog, website, photostream, etc.) add their contributions to the news site in a simple, quick way that is not copy and paste. The news site then becomes an aggregation point for information about the story.
* let people who are contributing to your news site also pull your news onto their site—share and share alike.
* the two things I always check out in Flickr are photos of my friends and comments I’ve made. I want to see what’s new related to my interests, activities and relationships. So in the example above, once you have personal remixes of the news, allow people to view the remixes they’ve subscribed to and the comments they’ve made.

By James on Apr 4, 2007

A funny thing happened while reading through your proposal - I might even call it a dimensional shift. I realized this is exactly where news websites need to be.  I read a massive amount of blogs/news portals everday, and the difference between them is striking.  News websites still feel like the old “one-way” communication, useful for breaking the story, but old and dead within an hour.  Your Tickr is really the dimension that made photography so much fun, but applied to the news.  Congrats on the great work.

By ianmack on Apr 4, 2007

This is a very cool idea. I like it a lot, however, I do still like the old school hold-overs of Business, Sports, Arts. Sometimes I do want to look at a broad category, but then be able to drill down by subject. This is still really great.

By Monique on Apr 4, 2007

Great idea. I’ve posted a note on my 07newsroom blog and sent word to a norgs email list and encouraged people to comment. Thanks and keep those ideas flowing,
Carl
http://indianhillmediaworks.typepad.com/07newsroom/

By Carl on Apr 6, 2007

thats where social bookmarking sites come in where users can not only submit news but also can discuss and post comments

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