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San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Scott Harris columnMay 13, 2010 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- First, a few questions: Are you reading this article in print or online? How did you find it? Is the newspaper delivered to your home or was it picked from a pile at a coffee shop? Do you regularly visit mercurynews.com or siliconvalley.com, or were you led by a link on a search engine or via social media such as Facebook or Twitter? If the latter, feel free to share or re-tweet it. I could use the exposure. It's hard to overstate the way the Internet is changing journalism. And now, as the likes of Google and Facebook alter the way news reports and commentary are distributed, a little valley startup called Echo is trying to make its mark in what has been called "conversational media." Not only do readers join the conversation, they spread the word. Echo's pitch: "Imagine a new kind of storytelling where journalists plant seeds and audiences help them grow -- in real time." Echo on Wednesday announced new partnerships with The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Morningstar and others. Echo's signature product resonates with Web publishers because it provides a real-time stream of comments on their sites that their articles are inspiring on Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and Google and other social platforms. "We redesigned commenting from the ground up to recognize that most conversation doesn't occur on a [Web] page anymore. Most conversation happens off on Facebook, Twitter and other sites," said Chris Saad, Echo's vice president of marketing. "The new way to consume news is to have the news find you." Echo founder and CEO Khris Loux made a subtle but significant point in explaining why publishers like the new commenting system. At a time when Facebook is promoting its "instant personalization" service across a vast array of websites, Echo provides Web publishers with a means to go beyond Facebook. Instead of publishers serving the greater glory of social media, he said, the publisher and its journalism are moved to the center of the conversation by Echo. Echo is itself a story of change. When I first encountered Loux's startup two years ago, it had the geeky name JS-Kit, the JS standing for "JavaScript." Loux had raised $5 million in venture capital. His company was part of a wave of startups creating lightweight applications for social media. If you or your business wanted to add a comments section to your blog or website, JS-Kit had an app for that. When it introduced the Echo product, the name proved so popular that Loux wisely re-christened his company. The evocative name is complemented by a sleek website and those brand-name customers. Echo's story, Loux says, demonstrates something else about the nature of Internet revolution: What starts as an app can evolve into enterprise product. TECHCRUNCH 50, R.I.P.: When Mike Arrington, founder of the popular TechCrunch blog, recently disclosed that he had decamped from Silicon Valley to Seattle, he promised readers they wouldn't notice much of a change. Perhaps it's unrelated, but now comes word that TechCrunch 50, a popular startup showcase, would not take place this year because Arrington and event co-founder Jason Calacanis of Mahalo have parted ways. Both are concentrating on other projects. Contact Scott Duke Harris at [email protected] or 408-920-2704. To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com. Copyright (c) 2010, San Jose Mercury News, Calif. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |