Businessweek.com’s John Byrne Discusses Engagement

Our sister blog MediaJobsDaily has joined us at the Mediabistro Circus and they caught the presentation by Businessweek.com editor-in-chief John Byrne. Byrne’s presentation was called “New World Intimacy” and dealt with building reader engagement — something we think about every day.

“The secret of digital technology isn’t that you can do video, but that you can collaborate. Journalism has to become not a product but a process,” Byrne said.

As MediaJobsDaily reports, here some of the ways that BW.com is collaborating with its writers and readers in order to drive engagement:

* They put a module on every page on the site called “In Your Face,” in which they harvest the best comments on the site and feature the reader on the homepage.
* BW.com’s “bribed” journalists to respond to readers by promising better exposure on the site if journos engage.
* They have a feature called “My Take” with essays from readers, but they don’t take any submissions. They find articulate readers who are leaving lots of comments and commission essays from them.
* The 100 “best” commenters last year were given T-shirts, the top 10 got a dinner.

What do you think? What are some ways blogs like FishbowlNY can engage readers?

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