NewsCloud is free, open source software that allows media organizations to build interactive online communities and crowdsource content from readers. It provides features like forums, classifieds, event calendars, and photo galleries to engage audiences and generate new traffic and revenue. NewsCloud can be installed in under 20 minutes and costs as little as $45 per month to use. It is an alternative to limited Facebook pages that don't effectively build communities or allow monetization. Promoting and linking to the NewsCloud community is key to driving participation and success.
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Newscloud Ignite Presentation
1. Turn Your Readers into Participants
Engaging Your Community with NewsCloud
The Media Consortium, Oakland 2011
Jeff Reifman
Seattle, Washington
jeff@newscloud.com
@newscloud
2. NewsCloud is…
• Free, open source, Facebook-connected
software for building interactive communities
• Funded by the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation
• Use it to host a virtual town center
• Turn your readers into participants
• Enhance your storytelling with crowdsourcing
• Generate new page views and revenue
3. Participant Features
• Share news links
• Write blog posts
• Talk in discussion forums
• Organize links in resource directories
• Ask and answer questions
• Sell, lend, give away stuff in classifieds & lending library
• Crowdsource ideas
• Share photos and video in galleries
• Share and browse event calendars
• Play the predictions game
4. Platform Features
• Themed with your brand
• Fully configurable front page
• Facebook Connect & Twitter Integration
• Real time notifications
• Your advertising engine
• Your stats engine
• Site maps for SEO
• Sharable widgets
• Foreign language support
• Grant-funded development continues through April 2012
5. Problems with Facebook Pages
• Pages are generic, bland and limited to the
functionality Facebook gives you
• Pages don’t build community
• Your audience will never think of your Facebook
page as a great place to come back, nor a great
place to start
• Pages drive discussions away from your website
• No way to monetize them
11. Success Tips
Promote it and link to it
Promote it and link to it
Promote it and link to it
Promote it and link to it
12. Other Success Tips
• Make the application a place for audience
participation
• Dedicate staff to curate the community
• Train and connect everyone in your organization with
the application
• Link news stories to the application’s interactive
features
• Build links into your site navigation
• Place widgets from the application on your website
13. You Can Use This
• Use our automated installer
– Launch in less than 20 minutes
– Costs as little as $45/mo.
• Or, hire a web consulting firm
– Let them manage it for you
• Or, talk to NewsCloud
– We provide a variety of managed services and
hosting solutions
14. Contact Us
• Email
– jeff@newscloud.com
– Follow @newscloud
• Website
– http://www.newscloud.com
• Blogs
– http://blog.newscloud.com
– http://opensource.newscloud.com
• Get the code
– http://github.com/newscloud/n2
• Social Media Research
– http://newscloud.com/research