How did Silicon Valley's new media startups compete for user attention?

English Original: Inside the buzz-fueled Media startups battling for Your Attention

A bit of a fake, in a well-funded start-up office, bricks exposed outside the walls, huge screens showing user data and pie charts, all the way to the end of a food cart, people tasting new baked coffee while arguing over iphone 6 and iphone 6 Puls Two models. This is Circa's work scenario, which is designed to change the way readers get breaking news. But it's a little hard when there's no breaking news. And today, on this San Francisco afternoon, nothing happens on Earth.

This is clearly reflected on the big screen. When many people are using CIRCA, these screens are full of exciting data sheets and images, and the data and curves are rising all the time. But the world is boring today, so the lines on the screen are down and down. And these charts are closely related to the atmosphere in the office.

The only exciting moment of the day happened in the morning, when Circa's CEO, Matt Kelligen Matt Galligan, and President John Maron (John Maloney) appeared on Bloomberg Television. They are promoting new, more beautiful, more functional new CIRCA applications to people. But Bloomberg made the video wrong, and did not recall the Circa News 3, but the old version of Circa News 1. Everyone was making a sound of surprise. The host asked Malone if he was--circa, the former president of TUMBLR, as an acquisition target. A few employees shouted, "Great!" ”

But it all happened a few hours ago. Immediately after the sudden: Ebola! On the other side of the room, Android programmers who are browsing Twitter have found a Twitter message from Dallas television, shouting, "Ebola is on the American soil!" "It's 1:43 Pacific time, and in a moment the world's most influential news agency is going to get your attention."

The media has been competing against each other to win the attention of the audience-always trying to do it in a more innovative way. The sensational 72-point-size (72-point) headline printing was not enough, and they asked people to sell to passers-by on the street. William Randolph Hurst William Randolph Hearst, who used his media to declare war on Spain, was able to sell more newspapers. (in all of the content, bloodshed is the most appealing to readers-in the jargon of journalism, "bleeding is the flow", "if it bleeds it leads". Cable news interrupted the scheduled program. Every message from Matt Druji (o.j Matt Drudge) CNN will follow. An old Fox News anchor Geraldo Rivera (Geraldo Rivera) took off his clothes.

Over the past few decades, this eye-catching battle has taken place in an expanding battlefield. With the advent of a new generation of Internet, online publications and blogs are scrambling to occupy readers ' computer screens. The rise of mobile devices has left the battlefield boundless. No matter where you are, or what you are doing--eating, drinking, watching movies--the news can be served in your hands. Push reminders and social media streams are constantly pouring in, as if the information is being bombed, all of which happen on the same small screen. There is only one real channel now, and that is the mobile device that is now in your pocket (or in your hand).

And now everyone can have a cell phone. Everyone can play the content they produce. The media is completely flat and democratized, and your little sister may use the same means of communication as the world's most powerful authors. Her content messages can be reached at any time – possibly to anyone – without the need to invest in radio towers or print publications, satellites or cables. No one else needs it. The whisper in your pocket may mean that the U.S. military is again attacking Iraq, or another massive hurricane heading for Thailand, or your father has labeled a photo of you on Facebook. Even Hearst does not need to compete with puppy video for the audience.

The point is that the media is not only competing with your little sister-it's turning her into a spokesperson (co-opt), using her as a conduit for content dissemination. She has become a new distribution mechanism. Instead of learning about the world by The New York Times, we're sharing the Times article with family and friends, and the news that the Guardian pushed in four minutes ago. According to the Pew Research Center, 30% of American adults get news from Facebook. A report by the American Media Association shows that more than half of Americans read news from a smartphone over the past week. And that data is growing and growing. For news organizations, the problem is not how to attract readers to visit their websites, but how to embed themselves in the lives of their audiences.

These changes have spawned a new breed of media companies, each in the forefront of the distribution system to display the stunt. Like newspapers, magazines, television and other media predecessors, the latest generation of media pioneers are studying what media content can resonate with readers on mobile phones and Facebook. Unlike newspapers, who hire people on the street, they hire social media experts to sell to you on Twitter. You don't need to buy a satellite car or buy a good location at a newsstand, they reverse-engineer Facebook's algorithm so that its content can occupy your information stream.

The reader's attention is limited and everyone wants it. The only way to keep the data line on the big screen up and going forward is to let the reader put his hand into his pocket and take out the screen that drives the entire media industry and shocks everyone. So what would make you swipe your finger down? The 21st century must-see publication starts with the first shake in your pocket, and it's a shared content that all your friends like.

"Give me the source of the message!" "David Cohn is Circa's news director, who shouted at the programmer who first discovered the Ebola virus," David Kohn. Even with the fast-paced work of Circa, the old adage is still valid: "To be first, but to be right." "(Get it first, but get it right.) There are a lot of false alarms: Ebola news, which led to panic in California and New York, was found to be a common disease. But this time the situation was different--the CDC confirmed--so the Circa team began to get busy.

Speed is important for Circa because it competes with the current world of news--a reminder screen on a reader's phone. If you can get the reader's phone to ring in your pocket and the first to do it (breaking news is all the last except the first one), you will be able to present the content to him before the reader reads it from other media. And the result of this is very considerable. "Every time we push the news directly to the user's mobile device, we can see a significant increase in the number of hits. "The New York Times Press room Strategy editor Teisen Ivans (Tyson Evans) said.

　　News applications are fast, but they have to be restrained. The number of reminders is too frequent and the user will delete you. Completely disappear from the first screen! no one wants to try it again. That is to say, Circa has to be careful to balance-to remind people, and not annoying users. Sometimes there are no reminders for a week or longer. A more normal situation is to remind you every 3-5 days. "We always ask ourselves, are you willing to disturb the user's dinner for this news?" "Kerrygon said so. This is a choice, and sometimes Circa is mistaken, causing his editor to apologize on Twitter for making a mistake on a news alert.

But the push for the Ebola message is unmistakable, and every news agency has to respond. For Circa, it's important to be at the top of the show. They posted a piece of news in Pacific Time 1:47 pm. By the time of 1:49, traffic has started to come in. Everyone ran to the front of the data board, and suddenly everything was exciting. "Oh, my God!" Kerrygon shouted, dancing. "Does anyone push faster than we do?" "In Circa's opinion, no one did that. The result is a massive burst of user-opened traffic. 10 minutes past, the application receives 1200 requests per second-each request represents a user who sees a reminder and makes an action.

As in the past, there is a revolution in the media world, and no one knows what will happen in six months. But no one will miss the headlines, just as no one will continue to print the newspaper. Times are changing, but not backwards. For content publishers, it's good content to really win the attention of the reader. The value of content is more important now than ever before. The development of the media environment, but also in front of everyone in the hands of the screen. Only you can let the big screen of the data line fluctuation, through your click, through your share.

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How did Silicon Valley's new media startups compete for user attention?