True/Slant – Zemanta was part of the strategy from the beginning

Reinventing the magazine concept in the online world sounds easy now, that they’ve done it. Putting up a website platform for professional journalist to blog as columnists and develop communities, True/slant has attracted some of the biggest names of contemporary journalism. So, we asked their chief product officer, Andrea Spiegel to give us some true insights in the idea behind True/Slant.

True/Slant was created for both the news provider and news consumer.  Currently, more than 300 credible and knowledgeable contributors self-publish, self-market and build their digital brand and audience on our platform. These Entrepreneurial Journalists – reporters, authors, academics, bloggers – provide reporting, insight and perspective and engage directly with the audience in an ongoing news conversation.

The results are clear: we’ve had more than 1 million unique visitors each month for the past four months.  We believe consumers are drawn to True/Slant as a trusted, transparent news source that tears down the walls between consumers, news providers and advertisers.

And Zemanta? Well, in there, enhancing the content from the beginning. Professional tools for blogging were part of the Trueslant‘s strategy and reflection on better professional writing environments. Why did you decide to use Zemanta as part of the platform?

We wanted to provide tools that fit with the day-to-day life of the digital journalist so our T/S contributors can publish quality content, easily and quickly.  Our goal is to blend the standards and values of traditional media with the dynamics of the web. It was obvious from the start that Zemanta shares that goal.

Zemanta provides images with a single click, and fits right into our blogging platform.  Contributors can choose what works for them, whether they need photos, suggested tags or related articles. We use Zemanta every single day; it’s an integral part of our system and vital to our contributors. The guys were very easy to work with, and really took the time to understand our particular format and needs. That was important to us; we want to partner with people who care as much about the product as we do. I often say that, with Zemanta, we found kindred spirits halfway across the globe.

Their contributors are all professional journalists, meaning they are very demanding users, who know what can move the needle:

“Zemanta takes the legwork out of adding images to my blog posts. Rather than hit-or-miss Internet searches, I like knowing that someone (or some machine) is analyzing what I’m writing — even before I’m done with it — and suggesting images based on a combination of factors, some too subtle for me to even see. It’s like the machine knows what I’m thinking…”
- Matthew Greenberg, Worst Episode Ever

Zemanta’s wonderful because people like me, who spent decades working for resource rich places like the NYTimes and Business Week, learned the importance of visuals to draw readers in to text, but always had picture editors and art directors to take care of that aspect. As a blogger, the idea that I can search and click and illustrate comes as manna to a starving lady.
- Claudia Deutsch, The Bottom Line

We are happy to see True/Slant grow as a media and as a community, because they truly pursue their goal of delivering quality content to the web. Their quality and efficiency, we are proud to say, is partially our fault as well.