Posts Tagged ‘Life Expert’

Why Bloggers and Publishers should help their readers Spring It!

by mfusco  on Nov 24 2008

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“Enrich your advice. Extend your brand. Help turn the consumable web into the usable web.”

The amount of consumable content available on the web is almost infinite.  But only a portion of that content is actually usable.  As bloggers and publishers, you work hard to create useful information and advice.  However, in order to make it usable, your readers often need to transform your information into something usable.  To do this, they create personal task lists & shopping lists, print out recipes, add things to their calendars or address books, and write notes to themselves.  In most cases, your readers do these things on paper or in another application that’s not related to your website -  the result is that your brand is nowhere to be found.

What is usable content?

We like to think of “usable content” as any piece of content that allows a reader to a take action on it.   For example, if a reader finds an article about vacationing, the usable portion would be a suggested packing list or a restaurant’s phone number or website to make a reservation. Or if a reader finds a blog post about how to roast a chicken, the usable portion would be the shopping list for ingredients & supplies.

How does springpad help bloggers and publishers share their usable content?

Springpad allows bloggers and publishers to easily structure and embed usable content into their articles or blog posts.  The method of doing it is simple; create related springIt! links.  SpringIt! links allow your users to “spring” branded, structured, and usable content into their springpads.  The usable content can take the form of simple things like shopping lists, alarms, or recipes as well as more robust offerings like branded springpads (e.g. Meal Planner, Trip Planner, etc). 

Example SpringIt! Implementation




Let’s take a look at one of the posts from the Spring Partners employee blog, thesimpleme.  After the user reads the post and decides that they’d like to save the recipe for later, they can click on the “Spring the recipe!” link.










The reader then gets a copy of the recipe, with the author’s brand attached to it, links back to the original article & even links to a few related articles.



The author of this recipe has now given their reader the benefit of using this recipe in springpad, provinding many features that would otherwise not be available to the reader:
– Sharing with family & friends (the author’s brand & links stay intact)
– Saving the branded recipe to use again & again
– Automatically creating shopping lists, which can be organized & reused
– Including the recipe in weekly meal plans & other food-related springpads

Implementing SpringIt! Links

Currently, bloggers & publishers need to contact us to put branded SpringIt! links in their websites. Please get in touch with me to get started.  (mfusco AT springpartners DOT com)

To learn more: Check out this video featuring Rookie Moms
Or see try SpringIt! it out for yourself on these websites:
– Sex and the Knitty: (Pumpkin) Patch It Together (a shopping list)
– Midlife’s a Trip: Spring Karen’s Kick-Ass Cranberry Sauce Recipe (a recipe)
– Good Girl Gone Blog: Every day should be bagel day! (a restaurant)
– thesimpleme: Make smaller mortgage payments (a budget, a task list & an alarm)

Posted in Our Partners

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Media Company Seeks 25-35 Year Olds for LTR*

by Jeff J  on Sep 01 2008

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Dramatic shifts in media consumption habits attributed to the Internet and broadband penetration have been well documented and continue to gather momentum. From Baby Boomers to Gen X and Gen Y, we’ve witnessed generational shifts from:

In order to resonate with this generation, media companies have started to change and innovate. A few observations and a big opportunity:

Google rules. When this demographic wants to learn something – they Google it. To this end, publishers’ early efforts have focused on search engine optimization, along with formatting and distributing content in new ways that include brand attribution and link-backs. For example, publishers have taken advantage of sites like Digg and Reddit; and highly rated articles on these sites drive new user acquisition. And, going one step further, CNN recently made it very easy for users to embed branded and sharable video clips into their blogs and websites.

This demographic also interacts frequently in continuously expanding communities of shared interest. Not only do they expect what they share to be portable; they also want to be free to shape and use it as they see fit. We think this is a significant untapped opportunity for publishers – to not only re-package around content – but also to give users control within the content by re-imagining its form and application.

For example, we look at an article that provides advice on the steps to take for a stress free vacation and think there’s significant opportunity to help the user past the point of initial consumption. How could the publisher help the user to actually apply that advice?  And, how could the publisher provide ongoing value and re-engage the user all the way to the point of action?

Given the propensity for Google and the infinite choice that media proliferation and fragmentation provides, user retention is a major issue for media companies -  and a real opportunity for innovation.

Interested in learning more?  Contact me (jjaner at springpartners dot com) or signup for our Life Expert open beta pilot program.

*LTR = long term relationship

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BlogHer ’08: Notes from a New Blogger

by katin  on Jul 23 2008

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Kristen from mommyneedsacocktail.com at BlogHer ‘08

Hi, I’m Katin, a Segment Manager at Spring Partners. My job is to understand our target customers – their needs and wants – so that I can be sure we are building a product that they will love. To this end, I attended BlogHer ’08 in San Francisco this past weekend. It would be putting it lightly to say that I learned a ton.

Quick Recap:
A swarming mass of lady bloggers (and a few fellas) descended on the Westin in SF for a 3-day event focused on all things blog, featuring informative sessions, interesting keynotes addresses, stimulating panels, fun social events and tons of schwag! Each session was “live blogged” – check out the notes. Many attendees ”live tweeted” the sessions – it was pretty awesome to have so many conversations going at once! Some of the best: @ccarfi (blog), @gwenbell (blog), @wiredprworks (site).

Why did I attend BlogHer ‘08?
BlogHer is a great organization, not just because of all of the alignment they are creating in their community, but also because bloghers are gifted at reaching the masses of ‘regular’ people out there, not just the techie elite that we are so used to hearing from.

My goals in attending the convention included building a network of bloggers, beginning to learn what’s important to them, and test-running the springpad offering to them. Oh, and I also wanted to learn some new tricks for our blog, thesimpleme.

Bloggers are awesome:
At BlogHer, I identified two main groups of bloggers. First there are those who write about their own lives, their personal experiences and perspectives, and the things for which they hold much passion. I found this group to be really interesting, and not only for their desire & ability to share their innermost thoughts with the larger world; They often straddle the line between whimsy & heart-wrench, and somehow do it with a ton of class. The second group are those bloggers who aim to create useful content & advice for readers to consume, regardless of whether they come from a more traditional journalism background or are the lucky part of our population that grew up with the web. This group was equally compelling, mostly due to their laser-sharp focus on quality.

Feedback on the product we’re building, springpad:
When I described both the springpad concept and a few tangible uses of the web app, the responses were mixed, from “I totally need that!” to “What does it do again?” to “Oooh, I could be a life expert.” Generally, though, I walked away from BlogHer with the sense that we are on the right track:

  • Bloggers are just like regular people – some use the internet for everything & some still only use it for smaller tasks. We are targeting those users who are not only comfortable with the web, but also expect a lot from it.
  • It’s important that we build a product for the typical web user, not the uber-tech geek.
  • Life is hectic, and many of us need help organizing it. Our tool has got to immediately provide that help.
  • There are lots of people putting great advice on the web and lots of people out there looking for it. We will try to bring those people together.
  • Many of us are comfortable living our lives online, but we’ve got a growing desire to make it personal, secure and even more useful. Our product will be all three!
  • I’ve got to find a way to be more succinct in my explanation of springpad & its uses.

I’ll be writing more on these topics in the weeks to come.

Best moment of the weekend:
The BlogHer Community Keynote – On Friday night 21 bloggers stood at the front of the ballroom & read their posts. The writing was superb & the delivery even better. The crowd went from teary eyes to roaring laughter. It then hit me that this is what BlogHer is all about – it was such a unifying moment for all of us in the room. Oh, and then there was the session with Dooce!

I truly appreciated the opportunity to attend BlogHer, to join this community and to meet so many amazing women! (I’ll be in touch) Would love to hear your comments on the conference or my observations.

Posted in Under the Hood

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