NISWAW Panel Debate 1 - Doris Truong

@doristruong | #NISWAW

Homepage strategies from the U.S. capital

• The Washington Post recorded 53.5 million digital unique visitors in July 2015, up 36% from 2014.

• 38 million mobile users (up 58%).

• More than 19.4 million desktop users (up 5%).

• 41% of total digital audience are millennials — a demographic with rising engagement (Post-branded outreach includes Snapchat).


Homepage: 4 ‘zones’• “In the News” cues a topic’s importance. Nieman

Lab reported in December 2014 that 5-25% of site traffic comes from Google News.


http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/how-much-of-your-news-sites-search-traffic-comes-from-google-news-probably-5-to-25-percent/

http://www.niemanlab.org/2014/12/how-much-of-your-news-sites-search-traffic-comes-from-google-news-probably-5-to-25-percent/

Top table• The big stories of the day (usually on the left).


• A set of related stories takes over the entire top when there’s major news.


• The “feature display,” usually on the right, can be used for a topic that isn’t hard news.


Newswell (or stream)• This is a mix of news, opinion and features

immediately under the top table. Each of the 8 to 10 items gets prominent headlines, thumbnail art and short descriptive blurbs.


Downpage• Topic areas that require little human oversight.


Broad vs. Regional


http://washingtonpost.com/regional

Code name: Rainbow


Analytics• The Post uses

Chartbeat, including the heads-up display.


• We regularly check the Chartbeat dashboard for the top 20 trending article pages as a guide, but that’s imperfect.


What qualifies for washingtonpost.com?• We curate the homepage so it contains content

that is within our wheelhouse. U.S. politics, yes. Fluffy kittens, no (usually).

• We do consider when something gets sideways traffic: Does this meet homepage standards, or will its audience find it on social?


• We also consider overall traffic on an article. It’s fairly normal for a highly read piece to remain on the homepage for 24 hours but in different parts of the page throughout the day.

• We try to consider the mix of stories currently on the page. We aim for equal play between political parties and favor news over features — however, consumer interest stories (Does grilling meat cause cancer?) do well.

• Breaking news will always trump any plans we make for the day.


A/B testing• The Post receives

real-time numbers when we use alternate feature images or text for the same article on the homepage.


The same headline treatment is used throughout (Germany reduces Brazil to tears), but one image clearly outperforms the rest.


Breaking-news alerts• The Post drives traffic to the homepage by quickly

sending e-mail alerts (about four times the number of subscribers receive our “national” alerts vs.“local” alerts) as well as mobile push alerts, which ping users with any version of the app — including Apple Watch.


Thank you (Dziękuję)For more information: [email protected]


NISWAW Panel Debate 1 - Doris Truong

News & Politics

Transcript of NISWAW Panel Debate 1 - Doris Truong