Online Technology March 2000
Post gives readers the most with Prospero
By Kevin Juhasz
Editor
Audience management providers Delphi Forums and Well Engaged have banded together to form Prospero Technologies.
The new company formed to provide an audience activation solution to help newspapers attract, engage and understand their audience and derive value from that interaction.
"We do that by providing an outsourced platform as well as providing consulting services to help newspapers build a cohesive and integrated online experience for their members," said Dan Bruns, president and chief executive officer of Prospero.
Prospero offers message boards, chat, polling, a fully-customizable interface, site-wide management and reporting capabilities, and more.
The Washington Post began using Delphi Forums weeks before it merged with Well Engaged to handle the newspaper's chat and message areas.
"They had previously been publishing all this wonderful content for their readers, and the only way for their readers to talk back to the Post and other readers was through the letters-to-the-editor function," said Mosche Weitzman, the Post account manager for Prospero. "They wanted to fix that one-way communication and make it two-way communication and multi-way communication by adding communities to their Web service.
"The readers get a chance to talk back to The Post and each other using the community service of Prospero."
The Post is using the system to conduct moderated discussions hosted by newsmakers, politicians, and the Post's reporters and columnists. Prospero handles the chats and then allows visitors to the discussion to take it further on message boards.
"[The chats] typically conclude with a message and a URL that lets the readers go into the message boards and keep the conversation going,"
The company also provides a similar service for some of the Post's online stories.
The company has made some enhancements to the system that are directed toward media companies.
If editors feel the story is important enough, they can create a message board that will allow readers to go on and post their opinions on that story.
The program is called "What's Your Opinion?"
Stories that are chosen will have a link in the story that will direct them to a board where they can give that opinion.
Prospero is also providing the Post with access controls, subscriber management, integrated promotion and customer support.
The company's services include Interaction, Integration, Information, Income and Insight.
Along with chats and message boards, Interaction also provides newspapers with polling features, customized e-mails, user profiles and more. Newspapers can customize the look of their integration areas and control how messages are displayed and who can view them.
Newspapers can also create a My Forums page that is customized for each user.
Features are controlled through the Prospero Control Center, a Web-based interface that allows newspapers to decide how and where features appear on the site.
Newspapers choose what they want to use and Prospero handles it from there via Integration.
After choosing their features, newspapers can outsource the work to Prospero.
The Information service allows newspapers to track users' habits, spotting trends in usage and helping target information to users.
Newspapers can order Prospero's e-commerce solution or integrate their current e-commerce solution with Prospero's platform. The company helps the newspapers' advertisers target their banner ads, sponsorships and advertorials to the audience that would most be interested.
Insight is Prospero's group of consultants that works with a newspaper to identify its role in the community, provide tools to launch the systems, and help moderate the newspaper's forums.
Besides The Washington Post, Prospero also works with the Los Angeles Times, Tribune Media Co., the Wall Street Journal and nearly 200 other media outlets and corporations.
Prospero Technologies
617.441.4500
www.prosperotechnologies.com