Well, it’s finally here. After about a year, if not more, of development. Jim Brady, Steve Buttry and the TBD gang launched its highly anticipated community-driven news platform today in Washington, D.C.
Normally I wouldn’t be so excited over a news site launching in an area that has almost no relevance to me, but it is widely considered to be a statement to the future of online news. So I have to be excited, right?
I took about 20 minutes to navigate the site. The first thing I noticed? I didn’t have to click all over to find news site necessities — lottery numbers, weather and a calendar, for example — I just scanned the home page. Most news sites bury these sorts of things on their site, if they even display them. TBD.com throws them on the home page. Why? Because people are looking for them! And the way TBD.com is designed, my eyes aren’t confused as to where to go; all these elements are conveniently placed and easy to find.
(One quick idea: A small map, perhaps in the sidebar, that shows me events, police & fire incidents and news in my area, a la Patch.com.)
The next thing I noticed: Excellent branding. TBD.com has spent months building its brand among the ever-growing community network and the city of Washington, particularly through social media and random meetups, but the next thing it’s doing is building the brands of its different sections. The more prominent ones are “The List” and “The 9″ on its homepage. They’re quick, recognizable and, most of all, they draw me in. Navigating further into the site, several TBD blogs, such as TBDScrum, are prominently branded as well, using names similar to the Twitter handles they use.
Speaking of Twitter, the TBD Facts Machine needs a quick mention. It’s a Twitter account that fact-checks and corrects the news in the D.C. area. How many other news organizations are doing this?
My favorite part, however, deals with the philosophy of TBD.com: Hyperlocal community news and features. If I’m in the Washington area, I can plug my zip code right into the home page, below the nav buttons, and find out what’s happening around me, whether it’s the day’s big news story or a meetup at a coffee shop. Furthermore, TBD.com gives me the opportunity to get involved in the news process — by simply retweeting a story I’m interested in or by submitting photos and other news tips on developing stories.
I’ve mentioned before that, in some fashion, the future of news is hyperlocal and personalized. A successful news site has to be able to cater to my area and my interests, while doing the same for others. While the system isn’t perfect (yet), TBD.com does that. And it delivers all that content for all communities it covers in large part because of its ever-expanding blog network, which consists of blogs on dining, style, entertainment, politics and more. I now have a true one-stop shop in navigating the DC writers and content builders that also serve as community members in a sprawling metro.
Obviously, as TBD mentions itself, there are bugs to smooth over. And there are plenty of new ideas to be implemented in the coming weeks, even months. As TBD.com editor Erik Wemple puts it, the site’s development is “always uncertain, forever under construction.” Believe it or not, that’s a great philosophy to have in the online world. If you’re going to keep up, you’re going to need to evaluate the performance of your site quite regularly.
So what does this mean for the future of news? Really, this is one interpretation of the optimal news site (although it’s still developing). If news is going to be hyperlocal and personalized, it can’t have one model for all communities — what works for TBD.com might not work in other areas. But I think the concepts TBD.com is employing are concepts that need to be implemented in all news sites if those sites want to stay relevant, or become relevant again. What these guys did was start from the ground up in building this news platform. Sound familiar?
At this point, I wish TBD.com luck in the future, and I will definitely follow its growth, particularly to the mobile realm. Today is a wonderful start, and only makes me even more excited about what’s to come in journalism.
Other reading on TBD.com
- Mashable community manager Vadim Lavrusik does a great job describing TBD.com and its community-driven approach to news gathering.
- Things that Suzanne Yada loves, along with a few things she doesn’t, about TBD.com.
- A story from the Washington Post on TBD.com. Notice the skeptical tone — it mentions the site is entering a “crowded” news landscape already.
- Jeff Jarvis welcomes TBD.com. Short, but well written.
Posted by Brian Manzullo at August 9, 2010
Journalism