Here is the video to show how Re-Engage works.
In the era of at a glance journalism and the journalism of interruptions, with news alerts coming in frequently and at high speed, how can there be reader boredom? Yet, it is quite present, along with major reader distraction.
So, the folks at The Washington Post are doing something about it. Its new Re-Engage feature, currently for mobile web, observes how long a reader remains completely idle on a story page or how quickly a reader begins swiping the screen to scroll to the bottom of a story, and then offers a small pop-up suggesting other Post stories.
I find it interesting that this is not just about re-engaging readers who might become distracted, it is also about that ultimate goal for publishers everywhere, the challenge of getting them to perhaps read a second story.
As it works, if the topic does not interest you but you leave your phone screen to do something else, perhaps as when you got an email or a Facebook message, then the Re-Engage feature emerges on the screen, offering a couple of other story suggestions. Perhaps I was reading a Trump-related story when I got distracted, so now the Re-Engage will give me two other stories about Election 2016.
According to the Post, : “when a mobile user is rapidly swiping past content or not interacting with it at all, we will deliver a “Re-Engage” unit that recommends content based on the user’s interests identified through our proprietary Clavis personalization system.”
Read all about it
In their own words:
It’s a question that plagues so many publishers: how can we get distracted and inactive users to engage further with our content? Today at The Washington Post, we’re introducing something that we hope will grab the attention of preoccupied users and spark their curiosity.
“Re-Engage” is a new feature that provides personalized content recommendations and appears when mobile users show signs of distraction or stop engaging with Post content when on article pages. We built this product in-house to engage with users at a time when they’re most likely to look elsewhere for relevant content.