On Slate’s<\/em><\/strong> homepage I counted at least four perhaps five areas devoted to social media.<\/p>\n And\u00a0Slate <\/em><\/strong>goes beyond just doing the standard\u00a0social network sites\u00a0like Twitter and Facebook. There are links to\u00a0apps for both iPhone and Android. Other links\u00a0are setup for Podcasts or for the Kindle. The site is also\u00a0coordinating with parent company WashPo<\/strong> on something called the Washington Post Social Reader.<\/a>\u00a0I think a lot of this has to do with the fact the Slate <\/strong><\/em>from the very beginning\u00a0has viewed itself\u00a0as a multimedia site and not just a news portal.<\/p>\n However, as I noted in my very first post in this series (Slate#1-An Introduction) it has not all\u00a0been all smooth sailing for the site.“The WSJ reports the larger company (The Washington Post Co.) reported a 50 percent decline in second quarter profits, with online operations showing a 13 percent drop in ad revenue. That led to the lay-offs of four of Slate\u2019s approximately 50 staffers, including long-time media critic Jack Shafer.”<\/em><\/p>\n Slate <\/em><\/strong>has also been seeing some mixed traffic number in terms of visits to the website. While overall traffic is up from last year, there have been some months, (July), in which\u00a0it was\u00a0actually below 2010 levels (WSJ). Still, for the moment <\/em><\/strong>WashPo <\/strong>seems committed to Slate<\/em><\/strong>. The problem is there may simply not be enough demand, or enough eyeballs, for all the similar sites out there.<\/p>\n Salon<\/em><\/strong> is one example of a competitor site. Huffington Post<\/strong><\/em> also has a similar look and feel, though I think Slate<\/em><\/strong> is better than either of them. While there is some aggregation, its nowhere near the level that we see at HuffPo<\/strong>. I really enjoy the original content that is on the site and hope that the broader media company doesn’t cut and run if things get really rough.<\/p>\n So, social media use is definitely a strongpoint for Slate<\/em><\/strong> and I think it is here where the publication really has a solid lead and only needs to build on what it has already done to maintain it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ( * Note, this is\u00a0to meet\u00a0requirements of post #5\u00a0 ) The folks at Slate clearly understand social media better than just about anyone. While other major media publications have added links and apps to their homepages, for example; Facebook and … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jackspeer.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/Slate-shot.png\" "\\"Slate")
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