TNGDG – Part 4 – Lessons learnt and the experience

After looking into the timeline, the things that needed to be straightened and the momentum that was created, lets go to the final part, the lessons to be learnt from that plus the experience.

1) How to create a great title to attract readers
A single mail and a great funny game had to be put into a title that will be published on the title page of a online newspaper. So it has „made to stick“ and it has to attract the potential readers.
It is one headline amongst others and is fighting for clicks. Clicks that create page impressions that create money for the oneline newspaper.
The title that was used in most of the cases was „Ex-staffer plays games with Virgin Blue„
Great, because:
– its simple and easy to grasp and cut to its core
– its unexpected, grabbing people ’s attention
– its concrete, people get the idea and will remember it much later
– its emotional, and people care about the story and want to find out more

Find out more about these principals and more in the book from Chip & Dan Heath – „Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die„

2) Interpretation of a fact to attract readers
There was a mail, there was the truth and then there is an audience that wants to be attracted.
So you as a journalist make the story so that it becomes interesting.
Just a staff member making a game reflecting on some moments they had in a project doesn’t do it.
So you need to pump up the tiger to make the story bigger to get a bigger audience and to get the momentum we have seen

3) How newspapers are connected and reusing content
Of course that’s no news, how ever, could be observed very well in this situation.
All newspapers (brisbanetimes.com.au, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and WA Today) are connected to each other and belong to Fairfax Media.
Using the same layout and the same stories plus some local flavour. Still the news are selected independently and the homepage looks different for every one of them.
Smart approach as you as an individual are reading your local newspaper online presence (if you do) and probably not surfing the other sites. An article is written once and reused on all the sites and synergies are kicking in.

4) How momentum is generated in the internet
Of course, this was small. But it was great to see the momentum and watch everything develop over the day.
First one newspaper,
then others published the story as well
Forums were coming in
Blogs started to post about it
and other international newspapers used the content as well

If it would have been bigger …
more newspapers would have used the content, even in other countries
far more blogs would have written about it and trackbacked the content
twitter and friendfeed would have been other sources

It it would have gotten really big …
The story would have carried along for several more days
Press would have called me to ask for exclusive interviews
and I would write a book and my memorars

Glad it was small.

I might use this case for a project management presentation which explains how to develop a game like this and how to make sure its not creating any damage for yourself and others.

World is moving on, and so should we.
Hope everybody enjoyed the game and had and shared the fun we had putting it together.

Enjoy the ride