To be honest, I didn't know what is the guardian (the newspaper) before yesterday, so I was actually quite blurred at the start the presentation. Anyway, luckily I was able to follow after one or two minutes.
Just as what the team said, the UI of the app really sucks. It looks like they just want to squeeze all the content and plugins into the page despite whether they really need them. The space available for an iFrame app is quite limited, but they do not even make full use of the space. All the content seems to be squeezed at the middle and therefore the home page is very long although there is not really much content.
Another point that I'm interested in is the privacy issue. I was surprised that there are no privacy options in this app and all the things you do in this app will be immediately visible to your friends. For me, this is totally unacceptable, but yet, there are 2.7M monthly users. Nowadays, it's almost common sense that the privacy issue is tricky for people working on web apps. I don't think a big company like Guardian would have missed that. Maybe they just ignored it purposely since most of the users may not notice this issue.
The app also shows how traditional industry like newspaper can make use of social media to improve the communications between they and users as well as between users to users. Comment feature is there for many years, but not so many people are serious about that. By including friends, users are more likely to express their opinions. By including social plugins, users are able to know more about how other people think.
In my opinion, the guardian on Facebook opened a new market, the young, for the company. The originally guardian website does not have much stuff that can attract young people. On the other hand, by utilizing all kinds of social elements, the guardian app targets the young and has proved that is the right way.
10 comments:
Hello, Yuling here, one of the members who did the presentation on this. Glad that you managed to follow the presentation.
I read the FAQ and they *seem* to have a way to hide views from ticker, but none of us could find out where it was. So yes, the privacy control is horrible in the Guardian, and their FAQ doesn't help much either.
Yeah, young people are defiantly the main target for most of the web application. We also need to figure out what are the main target people when we are developing stuff.
Totally agree that the UI sucks. You raised a good point about privacy and the app posting on user's timeline.
Personally i hated that, i dont want to advertise whatever i read to everybody. Whenever i see an article i want to read on facebook, I always go through the trouble of copying the headline and google for the article.
Something should be done about this!
Jay
Want to be geek - http://wtbg.blogspot.sg/
sometimes certain news publishers opt to move onto an SNS platform just for the user base rather than for any social elements. It seems to me that very few ppl will leave comments below or share a news report on his/her timeline. But it is really the user base and the time that each user spends on the platform that attracts the app providers.
I would do the same as Jun kai, if i see an interesting article on fb. cause most probably the article is going to bring me to another page to log in and stuff, which is kind of a hassle. I would google for it too - Benjamin Xue
The UI is too informative to some users for searching useful information. But it maybe make sense to some group of users. Those users need quick gathering of information rather than looking for a lower-pace reading experience.
As you mentioned, this app is a living example of how the traditional newspaper industry can leverage social media to successfully reach a wider audience. Sharing is the basic philosophy behind Facebook, and news is meant to be shared. So it seems like Guardian is meant to be on Facebook, which is why it is so popular. But of course, it could have done with a better UI, which is a sore point.
The problem with targetting the youth by "app"ing themselves is how it would effect the quality and focus of their news articles. The guardians always been a serious newspaper, and its political critique, thought slightly left, has always been respected amongst intellectuals. They may have provided an interface to those articles on fb, but Taylors Swifts latest breakup will still get more views than a political commentary on Syria. And in their hunger for views, i fear them becoming another "the Sun".
Yes, indeed Guardian in Facebook is kind of a trail blazer, it shows how traditionally big companies can ride on this social media in totally new ways!
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