2012.04.18
What’s trending? Why we want to know.
If you answered our poll last week, we asked a question on whether you read stories that are trending — whether they are most-read, most-commented or most-shared.
This question is important to us because it helps us gauge audience interest in a story. In our morning news budget meetings, we look at stories that are most-read on our site, and the most-searched terms as well. Sometimes, the most-searched terms have led us to stories we wouldn’t have otherwise found — such as this week’s obituary of local stylist Mitchell Brumfield. It’s another source of information for us.
Automotive News' trending tool
But there are many ways to present trending stories, and find the latest stories as well.
Automotive news, for instance, lists “most read,” “most commented” and “most recommended.”
CNN.com's NewsPulse
CNN categorizes trending stories under “NewsPulse,” where you can see how the most-read stories rate against others in terms of views. If you follow through to the NewsPulse page, you can sort the stories by topic and see how many times they’ve been shared on Facebook or how many comments the stories have received.
Toronto Sun's highlights screen
We also want to share how the Toronto Sun site allows you a quick glance at headlines from each section. If you scroll over their topics bar, you’ll get a window that highlights latest videos and stories, for instance. Perhaps this could be one way to show what’s also most read or most commented.
All of this is just another way you can filter headlines or graze through all the offerings on a news site. Most of you said in the poll that you glance at the trending stories but only click on one if it’s something that interests you.
We’d like to know what would be most useful to you, as a news consumer. For instance, how would you like them organized?
Also, don’t forget — we’d love to have some answers to our birthday post questions!
- Do you remember your first Internet provider? Who was it?
- How was your life different in 1997, when roanoke.com was founded?
- What’s your birthday wish for roanoke.com?
I like the premise of “most read,” “most commented” and “most recommended. I think it is simple, easy and something you could count on whether a casual visitor or a daily visitor.
My first internet provider was AOL of course and dial-up….Compared to that, DSL with Verizon is a great step up. I also use a Verizon Mi-Fi at my Mom’s because she cannot get DSL and that works great too.
In 1997 I still had teens at home and we did not have more than one computer online at a time, so my time on it was minuscule. My daughter taught me a lot about the internet. We did not have the internet at work until 2005-06.
My sincere birthday wish for Roanoke.com is to grow, prosper and be “my site” for the rest of my life. It is comfortable, gives me all the local news, events, happenings and resource I need and I have made some wonderful friends here. You have already done a remarkable job, you already have a great, user friendly and navigable site, and I look forward to better and better things from you. I appreciate the care, responses and effort that you put into this site (and my daily paper!). I love Roanoke’s “grey lady”, happy birthday and many, many more!
Comment by Sandi Saunders — April 18, 2012 @ 8:03 am
I’ll answer the questions since they’re pretty interesting…
My first provider was Netzero for dial-up, if not including the on-campus ethernet systems I used while in college at NC State and VT. Our first high-speed was nTelos DSL. The first ever internet system I accessed was Q-Link, on our ancient C64 machine…but that was a service my dad was paying for. I didn’t really start using the internet until 1998…
Which brings me to what I was doing in 1997…at that time, a few friends of mine had begun using things like AOL, instant messaging, etc…but not me. My research for school work was still based out of encyclopedias, books, and other physical sources from libraries. I was in high school, more concerned with getting good grades and improving my golf game. I’ve always been slow to adopt new technology…I let the first few iterations get hashed out through re-engineering the problems with early launches before I invest time and money into them. I didn’t get a cell phone until 2000, a smart phone until 2009, an HDTV until last year, as some examples.
As for the future of the site, I’d like to see it continue to evolve as a central source for local news (please boost coverage in areas of the NRV outside of Montgomery County…), entertainment, sports, etc with a vibrant online community of blogs. To be honest, the blogs have historically been the driving factor for me coming to the site and checking out everything else. As long as I can access them without needing to sign in through FB or some other 3rd-party service or have to use my full name, I’ll keep coming. If any of those get implemented, I’m pretty sure my trips to the site will be greatly reduced. I use it on my phone for the mobile site pretty regularly to check for breaking news, since it’s much more user-friendly than local TV websites, in my opinion.
Comment by Other John — April 18, 2012 @ 11:54 am
Comment on the Toronto Site…I click on the link, and was immediately turned off by the site. It looked so cluttered to me. If you did something similar to Yahoo on their home page, I’ll be fine with that.
My first ISP was through a small internet provider that is now defunct, I believe, iPlus. It was a dial-up and eventually when I married my current wife, we both have been using Verizon DSL for many, many years.
I think the way news are moving toward a more 24/7 cycle, I think that blogs would become more the norm and “traditional” journals would disappear eventually. That’s not to say that it can’t be adapted, but if the RT don’t embrace the change to the digital technology, they will be left behind.
Comment by Trevor — April 19, 2012 @ 5:39 pm