Testimony about the interaction between the newspaper and readers, and between print and web

The Internet is radically changing the media landscape. We are moving from media monologues to conversation. The media outlets, that are not going to become facilitators, have little chance to transform "their carriage factory into a car business" as my friend Francis says.

Some daily newspapers worldwide have started blogs. With more or less success. Olivier Vault, head of multi-media for the French daily newspaper the Alsace, describes an interesting experiment of an interaction between the newspaper and readers, and between blog and print:

"Saturday March 4
A snowstorm covers Alsace and Franche-Comté (north-east of France). The worst storm for the past twenty years, with 50 cm of snow in the course of the day (and the night).

Sunday March 5, 8:53 AM
A post on the blog of our newspaper the Alsace (here in french) asks readers to send their snowstorm photos by emails.

Sunday March 5, 10:00 AM
A post on the blog gives a progress report on train issues. An update is made around 5 PM.

Sunday March 5, 12:00 PM
Because of the snow, only 30% of the subscribers have been delivered. To compensate, the web site becomes entirely free and a post on the blog promotes this free access. Consequence: +89.4% of pages viewed, +45.6% unique visitors compared to the previous Sunday. But obviously, the news also played its part in this increase.

Sunday March 5, 6:30 PM
We have received more than 200 photographs. 150 are published on the blog.

Monday March 6, 6:00 AM
In the print version of the newspaper, a page (see the image at the top) includes some photos from the blog, in a special section of eight pages devoted to the snowstorm.

Wednesday March 8
Second special page with photos from the blog.

Thursday March 9
We have received more than 700 photos. More are still arriving... The weather encourages us to renew the experience by asking readers to send us photos of the starting floods...

Friday March 10
Launch of an on-line photo album service (here in French).

Saturday March 11
Publication of a sixteen page special section covering the events. Two of them are exclusively built with photos from the blog. Other photos from citizens are used on other pages in this special section."

Here is a good illustration of the complementarity of web and print. It is also a good example of interacting with the community. Nothing very complicated. Right?

PS: do not hesitate to share your experiments with us. These pages are yours.