The surge of chatter on media blogs such as those by Matthew Buckland, Vincent Maher and Hilton Tarrant has been so loud it has reached the ears of the mainstream media community, resulting in a deluge of comment and CVs to Hartley.
This brave step by the Sunday Times signals its increasing innovation in the social media space and has created a massive impact in two short days. The Times launch is the talking point of the moment in the blogosphere, as well as the rest of the media community, demonstrating the best application of social media – having consumers champion your brand without you asking them too… marketing like that you cannot buy.
Hartley describes the response as “quite remarkable” in his subsequent blog post on Wednesday, 11 April 2007. “All have been very positive. Letter writers have suggested content ranging from crosswords to more and better international coverage. This will be a reader driven newspaper and it's quite amazing how these suggestions correspond to the demands expressed by our 120 000 future subscriber readers in research we conducted recently… And then there have been more job applications from journalists than I can manage!”
Mail & Guardian Online GM Mathew Buckland, long seen as the most innovative of media online in South Africa, told Bizcommunity.com: "It is significant that the editor of the new daily, Ray Hartley, decided to break some of the first pictures of the newspaper on a blog. It shows a new innovative approach and desire to embrace new forms of media.
"Converged media operations that include both online and print in the news-gathering and production process are the future. The Times is that very media operation of the future, but now right on our doorstep. What can I say, I'm jealous."
In his blog which caused all the comment, Hartley wrote about the layout: “Here is a glimpse of part of our front page - we don't want to give the whole game away just yet. It's from our second dummy. The first was NOT GOOD. (Badly printed, headlines running over too many decks, over-inked, messy… I could go on). We want the paper to be bright and easy on the eye and we have got a lot closer with Dummy 2. In brief: it goes out free to around 120 000 subscribers; it will be a totally integrated paper which will offer readers a 24 hour news experience online and in print; it is being built from the ground up and will have its own news, photographic, multimedia and production staff.”
Hartley's blog continued: “The current phase consists of designing the offices, recruiting the staff, designing the paper and rebuilding the site around interactivity. It is going to be a paper for busy people, the majority of whom are online and it is going to be about helping them navigate their way through a growing torrent of information. In this new multimedia age, information is abundant - it is attention that is the scarce commodity. “
New media uber-guru and strategist at the Mail & Guardian Online, Vincent Maher, when blogging about Hartley's step of revealing intimate details of the launch and process on his blog, also sneaked in another rumour doing the rounds: “I guess this is why IOL are scrambling right now to revise their portal strategy and social media integration…”
There's a significant challenge that has been thrown down here by one of South Africa's oldest and most mainstream newspapers: they have embraced social media and the resultant shifts in the media landscape globally, drawing an indelible line in the sand for other traditional media houses in South Africa. It will be interesting to see who is next up for the challenge.
