For media web sites, slideshows are a great way to get your audience to spend more time on the site and give you more pageviews. When I was leading InfoWorld.com they were an important strategy in our successful efforts to build engagement. Like many relatively simple solutions, slideshows have been around awhile but the concept continues to evolve.
On Sunday WashingtonPost.com had a great feature that combines the power of the slideshow with user-generated content: Peeps Show. Getting away from its staid image (another must to succeed at online media), the Post invited its audience to create dioramas based on the chemically candy treats/pop culture icons known as Peeps (more on the Peep phenomenon in the Wikipedia). Timed for Easter, the peak Peep season, the Post selected finalists from over 800 submissions, then presented them in a slideshow.
Augmenting the slides were a text article about the contest, an online voting form allowing the audience to select a favorite, and an interactive live chat with Dan Zak, the Post reporter who managed the contest. Today the slideshow is ranked as the most popular show on the Post site and over 4,000 people have voted on favorites. The Peeps content is a nice win for the Post and a great example of how to leverage content in ways that are optimized for online media.
On Sunday WashingtonPost.com had a great feature that combines the power of the slideshow with user-generated content: Peeps Show. Getting away from its staid image (another must to succeed at online media), the Post invited its audience to create dioramas based on the chemically candy treats/pop culture icons known as Peeps (more on the Peep phenomenon in the Wikipedia). Timed for Easter, the peak Peep season, the Post selected finalists from over 800 submissions, then presented them in a slideshow.
Augmenting the slides were a text article about the contest, an online voting form allowing the audience to select a favorite, and an interactive live chat with Dan Zak, the Post reporter who managed the contest. Today the slideshow is ranked as the most popular show on the Post site and over 4,000 people have voted on favorites. The Peeps content is a nice win for the Post and a great example of how to leverage content in ways that are optimized for online media.
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