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What makes content shareable?

Summary
Social media may be in its infancy but its model changes as quickly as slowly as mature newsroom are evolving. In short, the divide between social and hard news media is growing further apart. Traditional or hard news values like timeliness, impact and accuracy are important tools that inform reporters and journalists. However, there is little conversation published about social news values.


What will I do?
I will wireframe existing social media tools to analyze their designs, interview social journalists (Facebook and Twitter users) to understand how they decide what to consume and share and I will study their news feeds. Throughout these tasks I will consume texts and videos related to shareable content.


Why understanding the shareability of content important?
It is important for multiple stakeholders to understand what drives the share-ability of content. I will focus on members of the news media and interaction designers. Understanding what makes content sharable is intended to inform future models and designs that serve publishers and consumers.

Who wants to know what makes content shareable?

News Media Members (Traditional) News media companies now compete for attention of consumers casually browsing who subconsciously debate between social news in their Twitter stream or hard news on the nyt.com. However, increasing the shareability of New York Times content can benefit journalists, consumers, other content producers and communities.

Interaction Designers
 It is important for interaction designers creating social broadcasting tools to understand the values and motives of their users. In doing this, they can design empowering, usable products and services that deliver better experiences.

Objective
Develop a critical eye as an interaction designer and journalist to understand what makes content shareable thereby informing the design and models of future media content and tools.

Deliverable
I will blog my insights and findings throughout the semester. All sources with potential for reference will be posted at http://delicious.com/ninamehta/share. Source requiring citation, analysis and conversation will be referenced and discussed at http://ninamehta.com/blog/share.

I will summarize and express my findings in a highly shareable medium. I will plan produce a video but will change the medium if my research something that has higher shareability.

Research Methods (Subject to change based on research findings)

  1. Define sharing, social media
  2. Explore features essential to shared media
    • geo-location tags, Twitter @replies, @ facebook tagging, including a URL, inline photo and video scraping
  3. Define social news values
    • Social news values  (audience/community/identity/source)
      • Think of social news values related to traditional news values (impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, weight, etc)
    • Define social news values
      • Social news values  (audience/community/identity/source)
      • Think of social news values related to traditional news values (impact, timeliness, prominence, proximity, conflict, weight, etc)
  4. Does design influence content?
    • Is the medium the message?
    • Deconstruct publishing tools by drawing out wireframes to understand their sharing potential and constraints.
    • Discuss with interaction designers, engineers and product managers the thinking and intention of the designs.
  5. Consumers, Producers, Community and Audience
    • I will interview social journalists with heavy social media use to understand…
      • Who do social journalists produce content for?
      • What do social journalists consume?
      • What motivates social journalists from sharing content?
      • What do social journalists get for sharing content?
  6. Content
    • I will look for trends in posted content over a fixed period of time (2 weeks?)
    • What posts yield reshares, replies an messages?


Resources

Media
Below is a preliminary list of relevant video and texts I want to consume and analyze to motivate my research. As I research new books, videos, papers and blog posts will become relevant and some listed below will become less important. Citations of consumed and referred content will be included as a deliverable.

Video & Documentaries


Preliminary reading list

Interview Wishlist
 I will work to do interviews with journalists, designers, engineers and project managers who work with in this space at the following companies. I have direct and 1-step away connection with most but not all of the people and companies below.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RockMelt
  • Digg
  • BuzzFeed
  • Poynter
  • danah boyd
  • Local heavy social media users

Schedule of Work (subject to change)

30 August
Begin search for heavy facebook and twitter social journalists
Consume, share and analyze related media

05 September
Wireframe interaction design and analyze of Facebook and Twitter clients
Consume, share and analyze related media


12 September
Wireframe interaction design and analyze of Facebook and Twitter clients
Consume, share and analyze related media


19 September
Prepare questions for social journalists and social media designers, engineers, project managers
Consume, share and analyze related media


26 September
Prepare for and interview journalists at SND Boulder


03 October
Interviews with social journalists and analysis of their news feeds
Consume, share and analyze related media


10 October
Interviews with social journalists and analysis of their news feeds
Consume, share and analyze related media


17 October
Interviews with “techies” & Interview Analysis
Consume, share and analyze related media


24 October
Develop an analysis between traditional news values and social news values
Consume, share and analyze related media


31 October
Relate interview findings with social news values and social news features (geotagging, @ replies, etc)
Consume, share and analyze related media


01 November
Begin forming a synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media


08 November
Form synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media


15 November
Form synthesis of findings and an argument for what makes content shareable
Consume, share and analyze related media


22 November

Video Production (Storyboarding)

Thanksgiving


29 November
Video Production


06 December
Video Production


13 December
Video Finishing & Collection of deliverables


Details
 During the Fall 2010 semester at Indiana University in Bloomington at the School of Bloomington, I, Nina Mehta, propose the Independent Study above with Professor Hans Ibold for three J804 credits. I will not be sitting in on an undergraduate course. All deliverable will be submit to Professor Ibold by or on Friday, December 17th, 2010 at midnight.



Credits to Arjun Banker, Matthew Beebe, Adrienne Dye, John Wayne Hill, Apurva Pangam and Robin Sloan for being listening ears and critical friends.

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Categories: Design, HCId, Journalism, Share.

By admin
— 7, July, 2010 at 7:22 pm

24 hours in Portland

Whilst on holiday in Seattle, via San Francisco, I felt inspired to go on a 1940s style American adventure. Manifest Destiny, Oregon Trail. Monday night I booked a morning Coast Starlight ride along the coast to Portland. I made friends in the lounge car and marveled at what is my country.

The never ending beautiful view

I started posting notes on Facebook before I travel to guide my explorations. I find that my friends have a better sense of my interests than any tour book. I also always seem to discover I know more people where I’m going than I thought. It’s a great archive I can share with my friends in the future and helps all my friends know what has already been recommended to me. The other benefit is that usually when I return from somewhere, people say something like “I lived in Portland for 3 years, why didn’t you tell me you were going?”

This land is your land, this land is my land.

The Coast Starlight ride from Seattle to Portland was absolutely beautiful. I felt like i was in a 1940′s American adventure. I booked my trip the night before and took off with what only fit in my purse.

I was given a Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous Tour of Chris Johnson. He and I are dear friends from my Indy Star days. We met at the epic Powell Bookstore and walked throughout the Northwest neighborhood. We had lunch at The New Old Lompoc, a great backyard-like pub. Late into our walk throughout the city we headed back downtown for amazing cocktails at The Portland City Grille that boasted the most unbelievable view of the city and mountains. I highly recommend any mojito including the blood orange beverage.

The view from Portland City Grill

My highschool turnabout dance date (fun fact) Justin came to pick us up and we enjoyed an evening on the patio at the Rontoms lounge. My roommate, Sravi, from San Francisco just moved to Portland. We gave him and some new friends a healthy hipster dosage he had been missing. The evening carried onto a late Cajun Creole dinner at Le Bistro Montage. Delicious faire that’s always open late. Here I was with zero plan, living completely free, from whim to whim with so many parts of my life coming together at once. All of us had a nightcap at a great little dive, The Bonfire Lounge.

Chris, my tourguide

Sravi, my dungeonmate

Justin, my blast from the past (and true gentleman!)

Early morning, I did the most cliche thing possible and ate granola in Portland. We visited the Waffle Window for a fruit, yogurt, granola breakfast.

Fruit, Yogurt and Granola from the Waffle Window

Chris took me around some vintage shops on Hawthorne where we bought sweet water guns and a mood ring for me to know when I feel purpley. We meant to meet Chris’ friends at Prost! a German Pub, to watch the World Cup match against Spain on the up and coming Mississippi Avenue. It was overly crowded so we strolled down the road for a cooler spot to hide from the hot hot heat.

The trip wound down with the best tacos of my entire life from ?Por Que No? that are also incredibly inexpensive. Absolutely amazing.

Carnitas and Tinga tacos

Weapons of choice

I wrapped up my trip downtown, got some Voodoo Doughnuts for the road and jumped on the Cascade for a snooze and ride back to Portland.

Oreos, Fruity Pebbles and a Voodoo Doll

Not bad for just one day. I can’t wait to visit again.

I'm a little proud of my $1 mood ring.

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Categories: Travel.

By admin
— 7, July, 2010 at 2:01 am

Push Push Push

I’m pushing myself. I really haven’t done anything completely foreign or new at RockMelt. So, good, great, move on.

No, I’ve been learning to do those familiar things, better, by doing them in many different (new) ways. Backwards, upside down, at rapid speed, in slow motion, under water or while riding a goose.

I’ve never had to crank out CSS before, but hey–consider it done! I think I’ll be able to tie a neat little bow on the top of this internship. It’s too bad I want to keep that ribbon untied. I still love driving through mountains.

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Categories: Uncategorized.

By admin
— 7, June, 2010 at 1:27 am

RockMelt Appropriated

What if the RockMelt was made out of Rice Krispy Treats? I found out. They’re a little cartoon looking but quite tasty. My secret is a core doused in vanilla.


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Categories: Design, HCId, Uncategorized.

By admin
— 7, June, 2010 at 1:13 am

What do you blog about when you’re in stealth mode?

I’m doing a lot of things. So many things. Tonight marks the immediate halfway point through my internship.

It began in a whirlwind and about seven weeks later I found some time to pause and reflect. All I can do is be grateful for this experience, this work, this home, this city and these families. There is a particular point that sticks out in my mind. During our first week, when John and I met for dinner and share a common thought:

This feels right.

I drive this beautiful drive every day.

It was kind of that simple. During that first week, We strolled down Castro street in Mountain View, as if it were the most natural thing to do in the world. Not even a week earlier we were racing and panting to submit final video projects. We were squeezing Capstone presentations into our jam packed calendars. Our mentors were leaving us. The next week? Twirling spaghetti and sipping local California wine overlooking mountains. All that being said, I’ve certainly learned and grown an unbelievable amount already. So what stayed the same?

This still feels right.

But how could I be doing anything else? Remember how long I was New York bound? Then I was gunning my hardest to be in Seoul, or Singapore or travel back to London or even leap over to India. I thought, I might just be chained to Indiana forever. All that being said, how could I have been anywhere else, physically and otherwise, than where I am now?

I think, also, I couldn’t dream up a better design team. Their skills, experiences, backgrounds, senses of humor and working styles all differ and beautifully compliment each other. They’re a small team of patient, helpful, feedbackful, engaged mentors.

But interning at RockMelt is about a lot more than design–which I like. I really love the engineering team, too. They are a a productive, pleasant, enjoyable collaborative team. I’m mostly frustrated that I was taught I’d have to pick fights with them. False! We make things; they make things work!

I commute every day by car, listen to podcasts and cruise through 360 degrees of mountains. I’m getting very spoiled and will hopefully do a better job of enjoying Bloomington’s natural spaces.

Arjun, Elli and Sravi, my roommates, cuddling up and coloring at Dolores Park.

Otherwise I’m spending the rest of my time breathing in every little bit of San Francisco–which is a whole other blog post. Almost every week I discover I know someone else who lives here. It’s just treat after treat. I even met up with three former Indianapolis Star colleagues. It’s always such a pleasure to see my friends from News make the leap. Go team, go! Tonight, I drove up to Twin Peaks. What a piece of magic.

The next step will be one step forward.

1 Comment

Categories: Design, HCId.

By admin
— 7, June, 2010 at 1:25 am

Starting up something new

RockMelt has a summer design intern and it is me!

“RockMelt was co-founded by Eric Vishria and Tim Howes, both former executives at Opsware, a company that Marc Andreessen co-founded and then sold to Hewlett-Packard in 2007″ according to a New York Times article published last August.

I couldn’t possibly be more excited for this internship. It is everything I was looking for and more. I have a unique opportunity to work at a startup on a fantastic project, with very smart people. Plus, I get to hang in the Bay Area with my brother all summer.

Let the good times roll.

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Categories: Design, HCId.

By admin
— 7, March, 2010 at 3:05 pm

Folder structure for an organized design workflow

Sloppy content management will likely lead to sloppy results. I learned a great folder structure system from Kurtis Beavers when I was working at the IU School of Journalism. He picked up this 4-folder structure while at Finelight. It’s great for web and print production; other structures are better for websites and action script Flash.

Workflow folder structure
Above is a photo of my workflow for a magazine I am coordinating and redesigning.
Keep one folders for each individual project and remember to save multiple versions!

ART
Store photos, screen shots, linked graphics and other images.

INFO
Store documents of text/copy, research, guidelines, styleguides and possibly a copy of your freelance contracts.

LAYOUT
Use This folder for working documents like Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator and Indesign.

FINAL (PDF, JPG, SWF, ETC)
Documents that can be submit or shared. This is handy for reviewing multiple versions.

Other Structures
Developing a Sensible Folder Structure
Folder Structure and Project Organization Best Practices
Project folder structure for a web designer

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Categories: Design, HCId.

By admin
— 7, January, 2010 at 9:36 pm

Digital news devices disregard the digital divide

Many journalism blogs and conversations are suggesting that E-readers, tablets and new devices will be the future of journalism. These will save news. I disagree. Below is a repost of a comment I made on the Society for News Design blog post about these readers. Matt Mansfield post reports on Roger Fidler, program director for digital publishing at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, and his work and reviews of these tablets. Matt has been an important mentor for me in my journalism and design career. I’m not sure where he stands on this issue but I believe him to be someone who does value the user’s (reader’s) needs, society and quality content.

Much of the comments before my response celebrated these devices; though “LdF” eloquently reminds readers that content is king. My response reads

@LdF I agree, Content is king. I think everyone will agree with that.
@Adam Levy I’m struggling with the idea that E-readers are the only possible option. If we think from user’s perspective, how many people are running out to buy, yet another, device to carry around with them? And that’s not even considering the monetary cost of buying an e-reader device. Which brings me to my point about the digital divide.

Sure, there are the people who can afford to buy an e-reader, those people likely have smart phones. I’d be curious to know how many people who take a phone, charger, laptop, camera (maybe), wallet and their lunch to work also want to lug an e-reader around with them.

Then, what is the news solution for people who cannot afford an e-reader? Sure, news is online, it’s free. I think that’s excellent. It works for me. I think we, journalists, designers, need to have some conversation about readers without mobile devices, without internet connections at home (or at least fast ones). Yes, we are designing for the future, but people with low-incomes will exist in the future, too.

I am not arguing that we need to fire up more printing presses for those without internet connections. Because those people, likely, are not buying the newspaper too (because of cost, not interest). So, let’s remember to also design for the future of news on the other side of the digital divide. If we don’t, I predict we’ll see an educated Bourgeoisie and a proletariat without access to news.

Coming back to my point: I have a smart phone, it costs a lot of money, it let’s me read the news without having to buy anything more.

Just playing devil’s advocate…

I do plan to return to the media, journalism community during my career, sometime. I will practice my skills as an HCI professional in other fields, first. I just hope, by that time, news information is not a luxury item that is only available to those with access to high technology. Let us not create a society where only the elite have the opportunity to be educated about their economic, political, social, local and cultural news.

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Categories: Design, HCId, Journalism.

By admin
— 7, January, 2010 at 9:07 pm

Let’s get connected and hired! Elect Nina Mehta for 2010-2011 GISA Research and Professional Chair

Nina Mehta

Classmates, Colleagues and future SoIC alumni,


Let us continue the great work that has been done by former Graduate Informatics Student Association officers and carry on the tradition of excellence.


I request of the School of Informatics and Computing bio, chem, human computer interaction design, music and security informatics graduate students to elect me to represent them as the GISA Research and Professional Development Chair. It is a natural fit for me.


According to the Cornell University Career Services, up to 80 percent of job openings are unadvertised. Professionals are hired through connections and this School has those connections. In collaboration with the Career Services Staff, Faculty, students, other university groups in Bloomington an of course alumni, I will work to further connect my colleagues.


I will work with the administration, faculty and Career Services staff to facilitate what needs to be done to get SoIC students jobs, internships, research, teaching and other positions to further their professional development.


I am an HCId Master’s student with an undergraduate degree from IU in Journalism and a second major in Political Science. I graduated in December of 2007. I worked full-time for a year at The Indianapolis Star and took a six-week professional leave to attend the Poynter Institute summer Fellowship program to intensively study digital storytelling and collaborative working on a full scholarship. I then worked at the IU School of Journalism Communications Department, The Kinsey Institute, Oliver Winery and now am a full-time Graduate Assistant in the Office for Women’s Affairs. I was hired for all of these jobs in 2009 alone, all through connections. I will do what I can to help SoIC students get connected within and outside of Bloomington. I am also currently working with the small team of students, Pete Bucklin and Erik Stolterman to influence the future HCId design space.


My goal is to learn more about the alumni network that Jeremy Podany has already cultivated so well. I will work to understand what can be done to strengthen that community for current students to join upon graduation. I have experience, connecting, preparing and hosting multiple alumni events from my experience working at the IU School of Journalism. I do not know someone who works at Intel, IDEO or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but I will work with the staff to find someone who does. This gets jobs.


I am a written, oral and visual communicator. I have professional experience with both graphic design and media writing. With these tools I can express the wants, needs and interests of SoIC students with a polished look and a garnish of fun.


I invite the School of Informatics and Computing graduate students to elect me, Nina Mehta, as the 2010-2011 Graduate Informatics Student Association Research & Professional Development Chair such that students who vote for me will formally express their research, professional wants, needs and interests.


You may review my portfolio, resume and this letter at
http://ninamehta.com/
http://ninamehta.com/NinaMehtaResume.pdf
http://ninamehta.com/loves/gisa.pdf


Thank you,
Nina Mehta


Read about the GISA Elections

2 Comments

Categories: Design, HCId, Journalism.

By admin
— 7, January, 2010 at 11:46 am

H&FJ’s work doesn’t translate to web

I began a typography course today. Working for a few years in newspapers, really drives the simple concept home that so much of design comes down to content and communication. Legibility in news typography is the most important (except of course for a concept illustration). It will be nice to have a venue to dive in and and truly engross myself in a world of Egyptian slab serifs and kerning theory.

Andy Clyme / NYT

With that I’ll share a NYT piece @nickd shared about H&FJ. The shift from print to web for many design elements has been exciting: color, light, legibility, image size, interactivity (of course) and of course type. I went to a conference two years ago where Font Bureau broke down the pixel problem bit by bit.  What a treat. Here’s what the NYT has to say:

Imagine that you are a super-successful movie director, who’s been given hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of whiz-bang technology to make a cinematic epic. Sounds good? Not once you are told that people will have to watch it on fuzzy old black and white television sets.
Something similar happens to the text that appears on your computer screen whenever you log on to a Web site.

Imagine that you are a super-successful movie director, who’s been given hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of whiz-bang technology to make a cinematic epic. Sounds good? Not once you are told that people will have to watch it on fuzzy old black and white television sets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/arts/11iht-design11.html

2 Comments

Categories: Design.

By admin
— 7, January, 2010 at 11:51 pm