Axiom 2001 Report

Axiom Research conducted a series of focus groups in 2000 for WBUR, attempting to find out what listeners thought of the station, the Web, and the station's Web site. They wrote a 21 page report (released in 2001) which is not available online, but included the following:

1. Listeners have a strong personal and emotional attachment to WBUR.
2. Listening is passive in nature. Listeners wonder if the positive aspects of their relationship to the station can be transfered to the interactive sphere of the Web.
3. Listeners like: "apolitical," "factual," "detailed," "humorous," "quirky" and "off-beat" in content and style. They want Web content that is not available elsewhere (i.e. not headline news, weather or stock quotes, they go elsewhere for those).
4. Listeners don't like: redundant links and "busy."
5. Listeners want: unique content, "cutting room floor" content, "in-depth," archives, schedules and online pledging.
6. Listeners don't want: "too commercial."
7. Some listeners had trouble discerning between wbur.org and npr.org and were confused about where to find desired content.

Axiom Recommendations:
1. Make program icons the focal point on the homepage.
2. Make the homepage clear and calm.
3. Reduce headline news, focus on expanded information from shows.
4. Enhance the schedule.
5. Create a feedback forum.
6. Carefully integrate revenue generating activity.

The Axiom report, even seven years later, has some interesting information, particularly in the profounder aspects of listeners' perceptions of their relationship with the station. These probably remain unchanged. What has changed is the context of the report, which was written at a time when few people had broadband, streaming audio was far from mainstream, and blogs were unknown.

Disintegration of Discussion

In an article in the New York Times today, Noam Cohen reports that Mike Godwin, the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, has a "law", which is:

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Anyone who has worked with online forums knows this to be true. There seems to be inevitable collapse of any conversation online that goes on for a while. If it's interesting it has to be, in some sense, controversial. And controversy in a vacuum creates flame. That's my law for the day.

The solutions for this over the years have been to make people sign on with a traceable identifying name, to create a service that people pay for (they're less likely to swear in a room they own), or to moderate the conversation.

Be a Part of the Conversation

1. Make sure search engines can find your content. (e.g. Make the titles relevant to the content.)

2. Link a lot

3. Be a part of the "Live Web"
Blogs, forum, comments, feedback

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=WBUR
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80337781@N00/
http://www.wnyc.org/photos/climate.html
http://www.flickr.com/groups/greenapple_climatechange/

4. Social Networking Spaces