Social media on Economist.com
Ben Edwards
Publisher, Economist.com

Mass media is adopting social media

Community Content
Comments Reader forums Reader blogs File sharing
on articles
Nytimes.com no no no no
Washingtonpost.com yes yes no no
Telegraph.co.uk yes yes no no
Guardian.co.uk yes* yes no no
Forbes.com no no no no
Time.com no no no no
WSJ.com yes** yes no no
Economist.com no no no no
USAToday.com yes yes yes yes
Techcrunch.com yes yes no no
Technorati.com yes yes yes no
Digg.com yes no no no
*but only on “Comment is Free”
** but only on “Opinion Journal”

How is The Economist adopting social media?

Develop via the familiar channel for interaction: Letters to the Editor

Letters provide a development path that is consistent with our
readers’ expectations about the brand

Debate?

Debate

Blog CMS limits social-media integration
Deploy
• Widget-based
• Platform-agnostic
• Modular (reactions, discovery, recommendations,
profiling, reputation management)

USAToday.com: community news

Economist.com: next steps
Plan for sequenced development: one-year roadmap
Reader interaction with content
Reader interaction with reader
Launch a publisher’s blog
Co-develop with readers/customers

Strategy