It is getting increasingly harder for me to report on newspaper industry innovation news, there just isn’t much out there. Today makes up for all the latest goose eggs. Social news / ranking / aggregator site Reddit has partnered with British Newspaper The Independent to offer Reddit functionality to the newspaper site. I think this is a big step in the correct direction for newspaper websites. I have said all along that it is not the original content sinking newspaper sites, but their crummy user experience, navigation, and link structures which are horrible.
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Here’s a screen shot of the partnership.
Permit me to toot my own horn. TOOT!!! I’ve always pushed for newspaper sites to embrace the functionality of social ranking sites and to use their interactive interface to help introduce readers to content. This partnership explicitly states that it will add Reddit functionality to the newspaper site. Another appealing attribute is that the users will be able to submit links from any source, not just Independent.co.uk articles.
Conde Nast bought Reddit about two years ago. I wonder if they are trying this partnership overseas before they unleash the product on their home newspapers. That is, the newspapers owned by Advance Publications (which owns conde naste) like, The Star-Ledger, Oregonian, and Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Potential downsides? An exclusive partnership might have been an interesting experiment to start. It’s hard to go back once you allow links to anything. Is the Independent now sharing revenue with Conde Naste? I already spotted a Wired advertisement on the partner site.
All in all I think this is a great experiment. It attacks newspaper site problems like social interaction, ranking, linking, user interface, and user experience. I’ll be following this closely as time goes on and the social site builds links and volume.
About Reddit: “Reddit (also reddit) is a social news website on which users can post links to content on the web. Other users may then vote the posted links up or down, causing them to appear more or less prominently on the Reddit home page.”
About The Independent: “The Independent is a British compact newspaper published by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News & Media. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers, with a circulation of 240,503 in May 2008 according to the UK Audited Bureau of Circulations.”
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What?! I know wired has been using reddit on their own site to vote up and down reader comments, but this is different. I hope the new york times partners with DIGG.