McGraw-Hill's Aviation Week - emphasis on content

by artytosh

Aviation Week's online brand - www.aviationnow.com - launched its community strategy mid 2007 by engaging Pluck's Blogburst system and the various interactive tools around that.

At first glance the community looks very busy and full of content, and this is because the publisher clearly has a proactive editorial strategy with regard to blogging - it looks like each editor and reporter runs a blog and keep those blogs up-to-date and refreshed. This, combined with the 'outside' content from Blogburst means that there are lots of content  linking options in the community, many internal and many external. The photo-upload feature is well promoted as a key feature - and seems to be used.

GOOD

The emphasis on content is leading to increased traffic usage and longer session times, so the publisher is hopefully able to drive ad revenues because of this. There could also be a revenue stream in the re-purposing of the content, through syndication. All in all, the site is busy and 'happening'.

BAD

It doesn't look like - apart from the basic community content posting tools - there is any move to provide the user with other workflow tools or integrate the community activity with other information products the publisher provides. Also, it doesn't look like - from my membership - there is any profile crossover with the other audience analysis data the publisher maintains. Also - I couldn't figure out how to log back in once I was out, but that may just be me getting link blind.

Also, most of the blogs don't seem to receive any comments, so there is still a lack of community activity. Most of the Forum posts are older than 100 days, again meaning that the community is not really engaged here yet. It looks like the publisher is struggling to get the communtiy to actually become engaged, because (perhaps) the emphasis on content makes it look like just another part of the editorial offering.