making web 2.0 features work

Online magazines are, slowly but surely, getting onboard with Web2.0 features. After all, that’s where the money is.

Show advertisers that your users are more engaged than the next guy’s (hey, they must be, you’ve got the comments and feedback to prove it) and the sale is yours. Advertisers want a guarantee their ads aren’t falling on deaf ears (or glazed eyes) and effective community-building features show them that people are paying attention.

Here are my thoughts on how a couple of my favourite online mags stack up.

Young Money Magazine has a number of particularly strong Web 2.0 features that make the reader/user experience more intuitive and convenient. The site features articles, podcasts, a blog and an updated event schedule. Each of these, with the exception of the articles themselves, has a dedicated RSS feed that is accessible from the main page’s sidebar, as well as from category headers and the individual features’ main pages.

Each of these sections also has a unique Web 2.0 component. The blog features dedicated buttons for seven different ways to incorporate RSS feeds at the top of the most recent entry; the podcasts have a “listen now” function for the most recent episode as well as an archive of material and a link to a subscription page for Young Money Radio online; and the calendar links to a Flickr group with photos from various events.

The reader/user is also invited to participate in Young Money in a one-time way, through a “Quickpoll” in the sidebar, the question of which changes depending on the page you view. This allows for a degree of interaction without the commitment of an RSS feed, involving even a casual user in the content, at least for the moment. The numerous financial calculators provided by the site offer another effective way to bring users into the site and encourage them to look around.

NOW Magazine recently relaunched its website, and having visited it a number of times in the past, it is obvious to me that the redesign was intended to put an emphasis on Web 2.0 functionality. In addition to a “more online features” heading on the main menu that directs you to audio and video content, blogs and podcasts are now prominently featured on both the main page and have their own heading on the sidebar. Additionally, each department has their most recent blogs prominently featured on their department page as well.

One of my favourite features is how the podcasts play, which is accomplished by clicking a button beside the title - playback is instantaneous and does not redirect you to another screen. No more watching the loading/tracking bar move across an otherwise blank screen as you listen!

NOW’s podcasts and blogs are updated between print issues of the magazine, as is an “event of the day” listing, meaning there is always fresh content for users. The podcast page also has archived material, offered in mp3 and iTunes formats, and its feed is offered via RSS or iTunes. RSS feeds for the blogs are available by category or author and all the variations are made easily available in a sidebar on the main blog page.

Even content not 2.0 by necessity (like the blogs and podcasts) has been updated. Each article has an “interact with this story” bubble at the start that when clicked on takes you down the screen to the end of the piece where you can rate the story on a scale of 1-5; print, save, and email it; and leave comments. All of this ties back to the idea of NOW as a publication that values contributions from its community and shows that they want to make this contribution process as easy as possible in order to create a viable dialogue with the user/readers they serve.

The Ryerson Review of Journalism makes it clear that its creators appreciate the value of Web 2.0 interaction. The main page features both a blog and article RSS feed near the top of the page, as well as a customized Google search that makes their archives more accessible. The blog page has archives going back four years and another link to its RSS feed, along with an explanation of what RSS is for those new to the term. Each article earns Web2.0 classification with email, print and bookmark options at the start of the copy. A variety of bookmarking choices are offered, making the act truly convenient.

In spite of all this however, the Ryerson magazine is still the weakest of the three sites I examined, due to its limited content. As the magazine is published only twice per year, the number of in-depth articles is limited. Conversely, while the blog is updated daily during the week, the content isn’t particularly strong, and there is little in terms of a community to encourage readers to get involved (not a single blog entry this month has even one comment.)

Given the clean layout of the site and the obvious care that was taken in making it Web 2.0-friendly, this site is a perfect example of why these tools should be used in the service of community and of strong content, and not to mask the lack of either or both.