In an effort to make its website more engaging, The Wall Street Journal has a new social networking platform in the works that may offer similar services to those of LinkedIn’s.
The company aims to leverage the power of social networking platforms to increase the time users spend on their site. At an investor day in New York, Dow Jones CEO Lex Fenwick said, “If you build applications and become a platform, it does lots of magical things that help us. It increases the customer stickiness and it means the customer spends longer on the site then he or she previously was. It allows targeted advertising as you start to understand more about your customer, what their interests are and what they may care about,” according to The Next Web.
The new social network will be centered around the WSJ Profile, or a space where users can upload a personal photo, a short bio, contact information, and information on their work experience and other work-related topics such as awards received and research projects. Here is the Profile preview that was presented in New York:
Along with the ability to add personal information, WSJ’s upcoming networking will also support internal messaging between users, a feature that suggests like-minded people can connect via The Wall Street Journal to share ideas. Smells a lot like LinkedIn to me.
With this news, it looks like The Wall Street Journal is attempting to monetize their website through two approaches: paid online subscription combined with advertising revenue generated from the network.
According to The Next Web, WSJ’s social network is set to launch within the next few weeks. Let us know if you gain access!
Do you think WSJ’s social network will gain traction among readers or do you think it will end up a dud?