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Tuesday Mar 06, 2007
USA Today 2.0
Following Tom's post about vinspired.com, fans of the News might have picked up that USA Today has just launched an all new "2.0" version of their site. It features a whole load of features, allowing you to tag content, see the most popular stories, submit your photos for relevant news stories and join in and comment on their Community Centre.
I was thinking about the launch of another "2.0" site last week as well, as I came across "MyActionAid", ActionAid's community site. The site allows fundraisers to share experiences and photos on the forum and create fundraising pages.
I'm really interested in how both of these sites will get on. I know ActionAid have nothing like the resources of USA Today, but I think it might highlight some interesting comparisons in terms of how useful some new "2.0" functionalities are, and what the other ingredients for success are for sites that thrive on contributions from users.
The reason why I think this comparison might be a useful is that I think people may use the sites in different ways, but the tools available to them are broadly similar. By that I mean both sites invite people to contribute and discuss issues that are important to them – but USA Today has a regular supply of topical, controversial content in the News, whereas I think it's fair enough to say ActionAid won't.
I like the look of the ActionAid site but I can imagine it'll be a challenge to get people to keep contributing and coming back to the forum. Having said that, if people taking part in a time specific fundraising activity for ActionAid use it for the duration of their activity and then never come back, maybe that should be viewed as a successful community site?
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:11 AM ) Link to this post Comments[0]