It’s a brave conference which gets 16 year olds on stage to critique newspaper websites. That’s what happened this morning at the Beyond the Printed Word conference in Vienna. This team of bright 16 years shared their views, warts and all. Here is a selection of their comments:
Ads get in the way of content. They don’t like clicking on a video and having to watch an ad before the video. (You could hear the gasp when they said this.)
Pop up ads are annoying.
Most banner ads are not appealing.
They don’t like sites with too much colour, too much animation or swirling fonts.
Sites need to be easier to navigate.
It is frustrating having to register to get the content you need.
As soon as you are sent to another site, when you click a link, they quit.
Having a dating service on a news site is degrading. It’s useless.
They have a preference for proper news sites as opposed to citizen journalism.
Sites chasing young people should be designed by young people – they can tell when a 40 year old is trying to design young.
Not much interest in using mobile phones to access news. (more mutterings from the audience given many are playing in this space.)
I can’t do the hour long presentation justice here.
Some key take-aways for me were that peer pressure drives site traffic. When asked if they would switch to another social media site most of the 16 year old panel said no unless their friends switched. The big surprise was their strong reaction of advertising and their dislike for paying for anything. This is a huge challenge for any online content site chasing this demographic.
How does this connect with Australian newsagents? Well, we’re chasing this market and since they are buying fewer newspapers than the generation before them, their insights will help determine what we need to do in-store to be attractive to them.
This was an excellent session, most invaluable.
The internet is killing big media because it allows unfiltered opinion. Journalists have to toe the party line by holding the “correct” opinions – usually those that support the prevailing ideology.
Lies and omissions are clearly visible now and the evidence is easily saved for future embarrassment.
The truth used to be the loudest liar, but now an insightful comment by Joe Average can instantly destroy the controlled media spin machine.
Savvy surfers use the controlled media for basic facts, but the truth is extracted in discussion forums and blogs.
Ultimately this will lead to repressive actions by governments trying to dictate the narrative.