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PUBLIC INTERACTIVE®

PUBLIC ACTION™:
CAR TALK COMMUNITY

 Tom Magliozzi, Doug Mayer
 and Ray Magliozzi
Trading up, way up
"Car Talk's" Senior Web Lackey Doug Mayer had a bulletin board problem. True, the "Car Talk" Web site had hosted lively discussions on its bulletin board since 1997, but as Mayer says, "It was clunky, not very user-friendly and limited in its options. The technology was, after all, 10 years old, which is antiquated in the Internet world."

Mayer's top priority remained nurturing and expanding the "Car Talk" community online, a robust 60,000 registered users. His goal became replacing the bulletin board with a technology that was powerful enough to handle the site's heavy traffic, flexible enough to accommodate the many features he wanted to offer site visitors, and vibrant enough to grow with the site as relevant, new technologies emerge.

Enter Public Action, the new community engagement tool from Public Interactive. Mayer joined the beta-test group last spring and found Public Action to be just what he was looking for to create Car Talk Community on cartalk.com.

"Public Action is by far the best thing that's come along for community engagement," he says. "It's intuitive and very easy to use. We work hard to build a sense of community around the 'Car Talk' experience, and Public Action provides an easy way for fans to interact with one another, with Tom and Ray and with people who are new to the show."

 Keith Hopper
Working with Public Action Product Manager Keith Hopper, Mayer began making the transition from bulletin boards to Public Action. He and his crew identified their Web site's core users — about 250 — and entered those individuals by hand into Public Action. That gave them a small group with which to begin beta-testing. They then e-mailed the remaining 50,750 users in batches, introducing them to Car Talk Community, explaining its benefits and features, and inviting them to register and help out during the beta-test period.

Hopper set up a feedback area so users could identify glitches and suggest new features. He worked closely with Mayer to prioritize the responses and determine how to best address issues throughout the development process. After weeks of careful preparation, all was ready — in late June, the bulletin boards were shut down and Public Action was live online.

Mayer was understandably worried during the transition, saying, "With 60,000 registered users, it had the potential to go really badly. But it went incredibly smoothly, thanks to Keith. He is just phenomenal."

Serendipity and community
During the transition, Mayer discovered that the "Car Talk" bulletin boards contained 350,000 posts, comprising 70,000 discussions. That's a tremendous online resource, so rather than deleting those files, they were archived. Now when people do Google searches on a car problem, they'll find a lot of good content in the old "Car Talk" boards.

Mayer appreciates being able to encourage community building by extending the minutes spent on air with an invitation to fully engage a topic online. He cites, for example, the entrepreneur who called to ask what kind of bus he should buy for a wine-tour business he was starting. Tom and Ray responded on air ... enthusiastic listeners followed suit in Car Talk Community.

"It's gotten well over 100 posts," Mayer says, "with people chiming in on what they thought would be the perfect tour bus for this guy. They included photos and links, and then he replied; there were more follow-up questions. They can keep this going for as long as they want."

He recognizes the incredible value of his listening audience, and is quick to point out the return on growing its numbers. "Next to Tom and Ray, the single biggest resource we have is our 4.4 million listeners. We get a lot of strong content for the show from our Web site — and it's all free!"

For some in public radio, community engagement still seems to conjure fear of a "Potentially Vile Postings" problem. But between Public Action's moderation feature and the culture that has evolved around the show, Mayer just doesn't worry about that one.

He says, "There's a 'Car Talk' culture now, one we helped create by setting the tone and establishing certain online sensibilities with our own posts. Of our 4+ million listeners, a few are bound to be wackos, but Public Action's Community Moderation feature is very powerful, and at any given moment, there are dozens of people who will flag a post if they think it's not in keeping with the standards of the culture.

"If an inappropriate post does appear, it's literally flagged within minutes. Only then do we come in to read it and decide if it should go back up or be deleted. Misanthropes quickly learn that they're wasting their time and go away."

Next steps
Mayer and his colleagues are having fun, brainstorming ideas and future directions for Car Talk Community.

"We're really excited that Public Action gives listeners the ability to post photos, audio, video streaming and more. That opens up several options. For example, listeners could record the scary sound their VW Golf is making and ask the guys what it is. Or we might hold a Dirtiest Car Interior Contest. We might record different car sounds and have people guess what they are or what they mean in term of diagnosing a problem."

Site wide, he wants to go through every page and flag the spots where he can spin off discussions. "We want to create two-way streets everywhere we can," he says, "so if someone is reading or doing something on our site, we can give them the chance to share their thoughts on it, too. We've only begun to scratch the surface of what Public Action can do."

As of this writing, Car Talk Community is still in ramp-up mode. Mayer welcomes your questions about his experience to date with Public Action, and he is eager to hear from you about how you plan to use the tool. "I'm really curious about what others are doing. We all ought to be sharing ideas about what's working and how best to use this powerful new tool." Write him at dmayer@cartalk.com.

For those who are as yet undecided about community engagement in general and Public Action in particular, he says, "It's not too often that I get excited by something online. I see a lot of stuff that's touted as the next great thing, but Public Action is very, very cool. Public Interactive has done a really good job of implementing it. They obviously have some very skilled people there who are incredibly conscientious, and that gives me great confidence."

For more information on Public Action or to arrange a demo, contact your PRI Client Relations Manager ... today!