For those of you who’ve gotten to the social media portion of our final projects, you may, like me, be thinking about how your company can benefit from using Quora. I personally signed up for Quora a while back because it was the new trendy site, without any thought that the questions would be relevant to me, or that I would trust the answers of anyone on the site.
The other day, the New York Times announced that three New York Times journalists will use the site to engage readers, holding a sort of “office hours” during which they’d take users’ questions. Times Associate Managing Editor Jim Schachter wrote that this is just a test, and they’d have to see how it goes before considering embedding Quora on NewYorkTimes.com. The announcement is one of the coolest things I’ve hear come out of both the New York Times and Quora. Everybody benefits. Users benefit by having the opportunity to talk to tried and true experts, the New York Times benefits by giving people a timely reason to reach out and listen to their journalists, and Quora benefits by being known for hosting such interesting content exchanges.
Interestingly, when considering bias and the Internet, this model allows for a new kind of journalistic accountability, at least from those asking the questions. Each questioner’s entire social and online identity is tied to the question. So not only does it confirm the person’s identity but it gives an (at least basic level) summary of the questioner, through his or her social profile. A great idea and new direction… tt will be interesting to see how this “test” plays out.
1 comment:
I agree that the arrangement between the Times and Quora is a potentially great development in electronic journalism. Identifying more accurate sources quicker cannot hurt the process of gathering information.
Giving readers a more controlled environment to interact with the writers seems like a big improvement over Twitter, where anyone can join any conversation.
And in an era of cutbacks, any way to create efficiency and cut costs in gathering info has to be good for the Times. From a consumer's point of view, I would be impressed that they are offering this service even if I never use it. It shows the company is trying to innovate and values its customers as more than just an audience.
Anything that's good for the New York Times is ok with me.
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