Thanks to Michael Jackson and the Lakers (both local stories), plus Iran, the LA Times is setting personal bests in web site traffic to related articles and blogs, and attracting an amazing social media followers on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
Some of the stats Jamie Gold shares from this internal memo are simply eye-popping.
There are are three important lessons to learn from this.
• Multi-media, real-time, interactive journalism is clearly what people want. A video of Jackson fans sharing their thoughts on the paper's YouTube channel has now drawn 632,00+ viewers and a whopping 4,000 comments. A half-million Jackson fans can't be wrong. This supply and demand will only grow.
• Smaller papers can only parlay their local stories into items of national interest, but if they already have the necessary Web 2.0 infrastructure and know what to do with it. While everyone's covering the national stories of Sarah Palin and Steve McNair, the Anchorage Daily News and the Nashville Tennessean are working with a home field advantage. Are they getting any benefit?
• Anyone who cares about Israel must be part of "the conversation" on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. This requires proactive expression. As Alex Margolin wrote in January:
Because of the "social" nature of today's Internet – where content is increasingly generated by users, not the sites themselves – quality content is not enough. It is also vital to maximize the quantity of people spreading Israel's message.
In other words, state agencies can do great work providing videos, images and information and activists can organize the material and create channels for public participation, but success in the media war will largely be determined by what the masses of supporters do with the information.
As you get active, don't forget to network with us on Facebook and Twitter.
