Our online newsroom builder here at IvyLees is driven by a lot of things. I’ll let Greg cover the tech stuff– here’s what went into it otherwise.
A mission
We want to make it easier for journalists, bloggers and PR people to connect. We felt one of the biggest places they did that was in the online newsroom. So our first step was easy: Make it so PR people can easily create a newsroom where they can connect with journalists, and vice versa.
Inspiration
We looked at a lot of different places for inspiration on the NewsRoom. The biggest so far has been the Social Media Newsroom Template by Todd Defren and the good folks at SHIFT Communication.
Todd’s three column layout was a great start for organizing all the info in an online newsroom. He covered all the bases. We still have a bunch of his elements written in the margins of our drawing boards.
We were also helped by the Richter 10.2 Social Media Press Room, which is very visual, with big, bright buttons and a feature video. The Richter Press Room inspired us to feature the latest release, to get that initial hook that snags the reader.
These tools really helped us along. Thanks to those that contributed to the cause.
Clarity
Our first instinct was to visit some of the press rooms of our favorite companies to see what they did. What we found wasn’t very impressive. Online newsrooms are downright jumbled most of the time. They’re also usually hidden away, three or four clicks away from the homepage.
We’re not naming names. Just look up some of your favorite companies and you may see for yourself. Or, if you’re a journalist, then you’re probably already familiar with this feeling.
We wanted to make something better than what was out there.
Social backbone
The mmph behind our newsrooms is the social media backbone. The biggest “Web 2.0″ feature is the one you see everywhere: The RSS feed. In 2009, it seems like such a basic feature, yet it’s lacking in most online newsrooms. Why would anyone want a newsroom that made it easy for a journalist to find the information once?
We also thought: People use social websites that aren’t IvyLees. So we link to those. Not just for the organization, but for each individual contact listed on the release.
The three Ss
Social, simple, smart. We found that “simple” and “smart” often went hand-in-hand.
The simple route was letting users add contacts with one click. It also turned out to be pretty smart, utilizing the magical technology that IvyLees runs on. We also narrowed down the release building process to just a few text fields, letting users get right to the important part: writing. Image cropping, captioning and smart video embedding round out the package.
We’re dedicated to bringing you the best online newsroom. Get involved: Tell us what you like, what you don’t like, and what you want to see added. We’re open to feedback.
Related posts:
- How to create a social media newsroom in 30 seconds
- What we can learn from Twitter Tracker: You can be mediocre. It’s okay now.
- How to customize the look of your social media release
- Shills down my spine: 3 ways to kick off the fight against online marketing evil-doers
- Presence: the best place to start with your public relations
