Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Facebook
Engagement
Study
Proposal
Summary
During
a
six-‐month
period,
NewsCloud
will
sequentially
launch
two
different
social
media
publications
as
Facebook
applications,
each
with
a
distinct
strategic
approach
to
promoting
participation,
community
and
awareness
with
young
people
using
social
networks.
In
parallel,
the
University
of
Minnesota
Institute
for
New
Media
Studies
and
Learning
Technologies
will
work
with
NewsCloud
to
configure
our
efforts
and
later
study
the
results
and
impact
of
each
particular
strategy
and
publication.
At
the
end
of
the
project,
a
UMN
researcher
will
publish
qualitative
and
quantitative
research
from
the
study
with
the
goal
of
documenting
strategies
that
work
best
to
engage
youth
in
new
media
in
social
networking
environments.
Cost
for
phase
one
of
the
project
including
technical
and
operational
costs
and
academic
research
is
estimated
at
$234,018.
The
preliminary
list
and
sequence
of
publications
and
accompanying
approaches
to
promoting
engagement
is
as
follows:
Phase One
elected,
the
site
will
continue
at
least
long
enough
to
cover
the
post-‐mortem
of
his
campaign.
2
Regulations
make
it
difficult
to
study
Facebook
users
under
16.
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
1
of
9
Phase
Two
3. Global
Warming
• Advocacy-‐based,
uses
Street
Team3reward
incentives
and
community.
Participation
in
the
community
increases
the
readers’
point
scores
that
can
be
redeemed
for
small
to
medium
prizes.
4. Existing
Real
World
Community
(tbd)
• Provide
a
social
media
Facebook
application
to
an
existing
youth
outreach
organization
5. Entertainment
e.g.
music,
movies,
games
• Uses
soft
news
to
attract
and
engage
readers.
A
more
aggressive
approach
might
offer
video
clips
only
vs.
written
stories.
The
publications
will
be
launched
in
series,
beginning
in
September
-‐
approximately
one
per
three-‐month
period.
This
will
allow
for
us
to
focus
on
one
launch
at
a
time;
time
for
each
community
to
“mature;”
and
time
to
collect
data,
analyze
results
and
formulate
conclusions
with
each
publication
separately.
Delaying
the
advocacy
publication
launch
will
allow
time
up
front
for
development
of
the
Street
Team
incentive
features.
Ideally, we need a sample size of at least 300 active readers in each age segment.
Note:
This
may
be
difficult
to
accomplish
in
time
for
the
November
election
–
but
we
believe
that
the
prevalence
of
Obama
supporters
inside
Facebook
(1.15M
Facebook
users
on
the
Barack
Obama
page4)
will
help
us
achieve
this
goal.
An
alternate
approach
would
be
to
choose
a
topic
from
phase
two
instead.
For
the
most
part,
each
publication
will
have
similar
features
and
design.
In
some
cases,
we
could
experiment
with
different
feature
sets
such
as
video
commentary,
polls,
prediction
games,
et
al.
to
test
the
effectiveness
of
particular
ideas.
It
may
be
important
to
add
these
to
the
publications
after
an
initial
study
period
to
isolate
aspects
of
the
primary
study.
At
this
time,
we
are
seeking
funding
for
phase
one
of
the
project.
Phase
two
funding
will
be
discussed
as
we
make
progress
during
phase
one.
Outcomes
The
goal
of
this
project
is
to
learn
what
works
(and
what
doesn’t)
in
engaging
younger
people
using
social
networks
in
new
media.
3
PETA
Street
Team
Program
http://www.idealog.us/2005/04/peta_street_tea.html
4
http://www.facebook.com/barackobama?ref=ts
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
2
of
9
• What
does
this
engagement
look
like?
For
instance,
do
members
both
consume
these
news
sources
and
produce
related
content:
talking
about,
with,
and
through
these
publications
to
each
other?
What
impact
do
they
see
these
non-‐traditional
news
sources
having
on
their
lives?
• How
does
the
user’s
engagement
with
these
publications
contribute
to
the
mission
of
the
affiliated
organization
(e.g.,
Obama
campaign
or
college
mission)?
To
answer
such
questions
merits
a
mixed
methods
approach
to
data
collection
and
analysis;
University
of
Minnesota
researchers
will
collect
quantitative
data
on
user
characteristics
and
interactions
with
the
publication
(e.g.,
frequency,
duration,
features
utilized,
and
activities)
as
well
as
qualitative
data
on
the
users’
experience
and
perspectives
to
produce
an
accurate
and
comprehensive
account.
Our
goal
is
to
publish
these
findings,
thereby
contributing
to
the
knowledge
base
about
what
works
with
independent
media,
as
well
as
use
these
data
to
improve
design
and
user
experience.
Some
of
the
data
collection
will
be
automated.
Internal
Facebook
application
statistics
and
requested
internal
NewsCloud
statistical
tracking
features
will
provide
data
for
quantitative
analysis
and
comparison
of
each
community.
For
example,
we
can
measure
and
analyze
activity
levels
in
each
publication
based
on
reading,
link
sharing,
commentary,
blogging/self-‐publishing,
content
quality,
invitations,
virality,
et
al.
Other
data
collection
will
involve
surveying
and
talking
to
users
about
their
perceptions
and
experiences.
University
of
Minnesota
researchers
will
develop
survey
instruments
to
query
readers
and
active
members.
Focus
groups
with
users
and
non-‐users
will
also
be
performed
to
triangulate
survey
data
and
verify
trends.
Staging
the
launch
of
each
publication
should
provide
adequate
time
for
qualitative
analysis
of
the
evolution
and
high/low
points
in
each
community.
The
end
result
will
be
an
academic
study
on
what
we
learned
and
suggestions
for
further
areas
of
research.
Potential
Partners
Where
possible,
it
may
make
sense
to
partner
with
real
world
organizations
to
facilitate
faster
adoption
and
growth
in
each
publication
community.
In
some
cases,
these
might
be
co-‐sponsors
who
would
offer
us
free
promotion
in
exchange
for
featuring
their
brand
or
content.
For
mission
related
organizations,
we
could
provide
the
service
of
launching
and
hosting
a
Facebook
application
for
these
organizations
–
which
also
offers
NewsCloud
the
additional
opportunity
to
assess
the
impact
of
one
of
its
technology
solutions
on
the
mission
of
these
organizations.
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
3
of
9
Having
partners
may
facilitate
continued
hosting
of
publications
launched
during
the
study,
so
that
the
communities
don’t
just
get
terminated
after
the
study.
This
is
less
important
for
the
Election
site
but
more
important
for
the
advocacy
site
and
others.
• Obama
Election
News:
Politico,
The
Times
or
a
media
organization
covering
the
campaign
whose
feeds
we
could
feature
in
the
newswire.
• College-oriented
News:
Local
university
communications
departments,
local
weeklies
and
daily
newspapers
moving
online
in
and
around
Minnesota.
• Global
Warming:
Advocacy
organizations
WeCanSolveIt.org
or
350.org
or
green
media
organizations
that
don’t
have
a
Facebook
presence
e.g.
Grist
or
World
Changing
• Real
World
Community:
A
group
such
as
Restoring
Eden5,
a
religious
group
organizing
youth
offline
to
preserve
the
environment.
• Entertainment:
Perhaps
MTV
(another
Knight
grantee)
or
seek
out
an
entertainment
brand
that
doesn’t
have
a
Facebook
presence
e.g.
VH1
Best
Week
Ever,
or
something
fun
and
video
oriented
such
as
the
upcoming
Freaky
Weather
(http://freakyweather.agentic.ca/)
Marketing
Strategy
The
quality
of
the
research
will
correlate
to
the
speed
with
which
we
can
grow
each
Facebook
publication
into
a
viable
community.
We’ll
apply
the
following
approaches
for
marketing
each
publication:
• Targeted
demographic
advertising
on
Facebook
to
supporters
of
the
Obama
page
et
al.
–
this
is
where
the
primary
marketing
budget
will
be
applied.
Stronger
partnership
development
will
allow
us
to
spend
less
on
marketing.
• Working
with
partners
to
co-‐promote
to
their
membership
or
audience
• Viral
features
of
the
application
on
Facebook
• General
PR
effort
and
opportunities
by
NewsCloud
and
UMN
leveraging
partners
and
the
Knight
Foundation
where
appropriate.
• Guerilla
marketing
e.g.
flyers,
tabling,
t-‐shirts
and
sticker
giveaways
• Leveraging
NewsCloud.com
members,
existing
NewsCloud
Facebook
application
members
and
Jeff
Reifman’s
professional
online
network.
5
Peter
Illyn,
Restoring
Eden
http://www.grist.org/comments/dispatches/2003/03/10/illyn-‐restoringeden/
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
4
of
9
The
application
will
also
support
standard
Facebook
application
features
such
as
profile
box,
application
tab,
opt-‐in
email
and
email
engine,
mini-‐feed
templates,
invitations,
directory
presence
and
sharing.
The
technology
to
enable
this
would
be
an
extension
of
the
existing
NewsCloud
Facebook
application.
Currently,
the
NewsCloud
Facebook
application
is
tied
to
the
NewsCloud
server
and
talks
directly
to
its
database.
Ideally,
we’ll
have
enough
resources
to
build
a
layer
of
the
newsroom
module
architecture
that
would
support
the
decoupling
of
the
Facebook
application
so
that
groups
would
eventually
be
able
to
host
these
publications
on
their
own
server.
This
will
also
support
a
future
open
source
development
release
of
the
Facebook
publication
framework.
Some
new
feature
development
will
be
required
e.g.
filtering
by
age,
supporting
the
new
design,
the
Street
Team
incentives,
academic
statistical
requirements,
compliance
with
research
regulations,
et
al.
Challenges
Essentially,
we’re
building,
launching
and
studying
these
publications
–
each
with
the
inherent
complexities
of
design,
development,
marketing,
branding,
outreach
and
support.
The
relative
maturity
and
activity
level
in
each
community
will
be
important
to
enabling
successful
research.
One
or
more
community
concepts
may
flop.
Therefore,
it
will
be
important
to
gather
data
on
the
users’
experience
with
each
publication,
especially
from
those
who
do
not
engage
to
understand
why
not
and
what
could
be
improved.
From
a
technical
perspective,
we
want
to
run
all
the
publications
from
one
software
code
base
to
avoid
forking
the
code6
and
having
to
maintain
multiple
code
bases.
This
is
desirable
in
part
because
the
Facebook
platform
changes
so
quickly
and
in
part
because
it
provides
the
opportunity
to
open
source
a
single,
feature-‐complete
code
base
at
a
future
date.
While
geared
for
rapid,
stepwise,
and
focused
study,
the
proposed
pacing
may
be
too
quick
for
what
we’re
trying
to
accomplish,
challenging
the
development
and
marketing
effort
as
well
as
the
researchers.
Partner
development
and
dependence
on
partnerships
may
at
time
hinder
progress.
This
project
is
not
just
a
static
web
site
but
requires
an
ongoing
service
and
support
structure.
Publishers
(and
readers)
will
have
questions,
feature
requests,
problem
reports
and
we
will
need
to
be
responsive.
The
quality
of
their
experience
with
the
application
and
with
us
will
influence
its
success.
While
I
am
generally
able
to
find
new
employees
and
contractors
quickly,
hiring
the
people
needed
in
time
to
launch
the
Obama
news
site
in
September
will
be
an
added
challenge.
6
Software
fork:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_(software_development)
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
5
of
9
Alignment
with
NewsCloud
Goals
This
study
will
be
generally
supportive
of
NewsCloud’s
overall
goals:
• The
study
will
help
us
identify
features
that
work
at
engaging
new
users,
which
we
will
be
able
to
apply
to
NewsCloud.com
and
its
other
platforms.
• Increased
resources
will
make
the
project
more
sustainable
and
support
the
improvement
of
the
underlying
architecture
for
Facebook
and
our
Web
Services
API.
The
resources
will
also
support
the
development
of
new
features
such
as
the
Street
Team
rewards
program,
enhanced
video
features,
et
al.
• The
opportunity
to
fund
partner
relationships
will
help
NewsCloud
assess
the
ability
of
its
technology
to
support
mission-‐driven
organizations.
• The
Facebook
publications
should
drive
increased
traffic
and
activity
(both
new
users,
more
diverse
stories
and
deeper
discussions)
across
the
NewsCloud
universe
of
sites.
• The
relationship
with
the
Knight
Foundation
and
the
academic
relationship
with
the
University
of
Minnesota
will
be
supportive
of
our
other
fund
raising
and
public
relations
efforts.
• The
project
should
help
to
position
NewsCloud
more
as
a
thought
leader
in
the
new
media
community,
especially
in
terms
of
social
networking
and
Facebook
capacity.
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
6
of
9
Budget,
Resources
and
Funding
Structure
The
budget
below
is
a
preliminary
estimate
for
only
phase
one
of
the
project.
Costs
may
vary
depending
on
final
project
scope,
form
and
direction
of
grant
(through
fiscal
sponsor)
and/or
UMN
regulations.
Phase
One
Technology
role
and
costs
Project
manager,
software
architect:
Reifman
$45,000
Software
developer
$42,500
Outreach,
Customer
support
$32,500
Contract
software
development
(as
needed)
$15,000
Contract
system
administration
(as
needed)
$5,000
Marketing,
PR
$15,000
Graphic
design
$10,000
Travel
$2,000
Web
hosting
$720
Technology
Sub-total
$167,720
Academic
role
and
costs
Principal
Investigator/Research
Consultant
$18,720
Graduate
Assistant
$16,895
Research
Subjects
Stipends
$6,000
Travel
/Dissemination
$3,000
Phone,
project
support
$100
Research
Advisory
$1,500
Reserve
for
University
Indirect
Costs7
$8,939
Academic
Sub-total
$55,154
Reserve
for
fiscal
sponsor
administrative
costs8
$11,144
Phase
one
total
$234,018
It
is
understood
that
Mr.
Reifman
will
spend
a
portion
of
his
time
on
general
capacity
building
and
maintenance
for
the
overall
NewsCloud
project.
The
cost
estimate
for
phase
two
is
likely
to
be
comparable;
however,
running
the
street
team
incentive
publication
and
an
additional
trial
publication
may
have
some
additional
costs.
As
this
is
a
research
study
and
not
a
direct
investment
in
capacity
building
at
NewsCloud,
I
would
prefer
to
structure
the
funding
as
a
grant.
NewsCloud
may
be
able
to
ask
ONE/Northwest
to
act
as
a
fiscal
sponsor.
There
may
be
alternate
structural
funding
options
within
UMN.
7
Assumes
lowest
rate
of
32%,
rate
could
be
as
high
as
51%
8
If
needed.
Estimated
at
5%.
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
7
of
9
Development
Schedule
Month
1
(ideally
August
’08
to
launch
two
months
ahead
of
November
election)
Month 2
Month 3 – 4
Month 5-‐6
Research
Schedule
Months
1-‐3
• Refine
and
agree
on
research
questions
• Develop
valid
survey
instruments,
which
involve
brief
lit
review
to
inform
valid
survey
design
and
getting
feedback
from
advisory
group;
pilot
testing
with
small
group
of
college
age
participants
• Secure
Institutional
Review
Board
approval
for
work
with
human
subjects
(6
week
process;
process
goes
much
smoother
if
subjects
are
18
years
of
age
or
older!)
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
8
of
9
• Set
up
survey
in
survey
monkey,
etc.
Month
4
&
5
• Send
recruiting
email/message
to
publication
users;
survey
incentive
will
help
get
a
higher
response
rate.
• Recruit
for
focus
groups
($50
incentive)
• Provide
3
week
window
for
subjects
to
take
the
survey
–
weekly
reminders
• Analyze
survey
data
–
trends/questions
to
follow-‐up
on
in
focus
groups
• Do
data
dump
of
internal
statistical
tracking
–
inform
focus
group
questions
• Conduct
focus
groups
and
transcribe
data
AFTER
survey
completion
&
look
at
site
stats
• Analyze
focus
group
data
Month
6
-‐
8
• Review
survey,
focus
group
and
internal
site-‐tracking
data
analysis
• Write
up
report
for
publication
on
(1)
what
engages
users;
(2)
what
does
this
“engagement”
look
like
(3)
How
did
the
publication
contribute
to
the
mission
of
the
organization.
Contact
Information
Questions
or
comments
about
this
proposal
may
be
sent
to
Jeff
Reifman
(jeff@newscloud.com)
or
Dr.
Christine
Greenhow
(greenhow@umn.edu).
Confidential
to
NewsCloud
and
UMN
Research
9
of
9