Journalism Enterprise.com

Yoosk

December 12th, 2007

What do they say it is?“Yoosk is a news interplay magazine and community where you, the members are the reporters. Put your questions directly to politicians and celebrities and watch those questions gain support as other Yoosk members vote for them. Our pledge to you is that any question which reaches 100 votes will be submitted by us to the person involved and we will do our best to get an answer”

What do I say it is?

An interesting attempt of doing collaborative journalistic interviews. People choose what to ask and who will be interviewed, vote for the best questions, and then Yoosk tries to contact the public figure in order to answer them – directly, or by trying to include those questions in the interviews this person is regularly assigned to answer.

What’s great about it?

The collaborative way of creating interviews is interesting. And the idea that you can come back later to comment on the answers obtained. The interview becomes more dynamic with the possibility of coming back later to discuss the answers given. The collaboration doesn’t end with getting the answers.

What could be better?

By asking people to suggest who is going to be interviewed and what will then be asked, they are risking not to be able to contact those people. Maybe if they contact people first, and they opened for questions, things would work out better. And faster.

Another point is the broadness of the topics (and area) covered by the website. Do people really want to discuss gossip interviews? Narrowing the audience would be good to get more focused interviews.

Also, it is not so clear what questions are already answered, and what is still under votation. Maybe different colors would help to distinguish.

How is it going to make money?

Once they have content to offer, more people will access, generating page views, what will attract advertisers. So far, it is just a lot of people asking, and almost no answers. So far, there are very few ads, incorporated into the content.

Should I pay it any attention?

The idea is interesting. If it works, it can be used to improve the way collaborative work, at least for interviews, happens.

The voting system and the possibility of allowing people to comment on the answers given make people come back to visit the website often, generating page views, and, more importantly – discussions.

By Gabriela Zago

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