==================================== RUNNING YOUR BBS LIKE A NEWS SERVICE ==================================== By Jim Thompson There was a time when running a Computer Bulletin Board was nothing more than a hobby. Of course, those were the days of tie-dye shirts and day-glo painted vans. Today, most of us see our BBS as a business -- a business that, hopefully, makes a profit. Unfortunately, most Sysops are still thinking like a hobbyists. Actually, what you have is a business -- a business that provides news, information, products and services. I have been a journalist for more than 20 years. To me, running a BBS is very much like running a news service. There are deadlines that must be kept and news that must be updated. Even a monthly magazine has its daily deadlines. A working BBS is more like a newspaper or wire service. The deadlines come not just daily, but hourly. KEEP IT TIMELY Like a news service, if you want your BBS to be successful you must tend to it every day. You must see it as a living, dynamic system that is constantly evolving. The one thing that will kill a BBS faster than anything else is to neglect it. Any journalist will tell you that there is nothing more useless than yesterday's news. This applies to a BBS. If callers see the same things every time they call, they will soon stop calling. I run a BBS which is open only to journalists. From experience, I can tell you that if they call in three times without seeing something new, they stop calling -- and we don't even charge for our service. If a user has not called in over a month, I make a point to call him or her and ask why. The reaction is usually the same. "I called and called but didn't see anything new. I don't want to waste my time or money," is what I usually hear. The point is that even a "free" Bulletin Board costs the user. There is the cost of the call and the cost of the time involved. Let's face it, the novelty of BBSing wore off long ago. Today, it is a communication medium. Those who run successful boards understand this. The first step to running your BBS like a news service is to keep it updated on a daily basis. Make sure there is always something new for your callers. This might be a new shareware program, a tip on getting the most out of using your system or information on a seminar or meeting. KEEP YOUR USERS UP-TO-DATE Never assume that everyone who calls knows as much about your system as you do. Not everyone is an expert in on-line communications. Recently, I received a message from one of our users asking if there was a way of sending a message to more than one person without having to re-type it. Our board runs under Phil Becker's TBBS which has a excellent facility for sending carbon copies of a message. I use it all the time, but it never occurred to me that others do not know of this "secret" feature. It only took me a few minutes to explain how to send copies. The reaction was remarkable. Suddenly, a whole new area opened for this caller. You would have thought that I had given him an expensive present. He sent multiple messages to everyone on the system he knows and even called people not on the system to tell them about the wonderful "features" we have that no other board offers. The result was a satisfied customer and an increase in users. Perhaps you could offer a system "feature" of the month in which you spotlight a particular function of your BBS. These could later be compiled into a user's manual that you send to new subscribers or use as an incentive to those who renew their subscription. BE RESPONSIVE Keep in touch with your users. There is not a newspaper or magazine in the world that could stay in business very long if they were not responsive to their readers. The larger news organizations spend millions doing surveys. They stay in business because they ask their readers what they want and then give it to them. A BBS offers a unique opportunity to include your customers in the decision making process. The interactive ability of an on-line system allows your callers to help shape the system. Users who have an active hand in shaping the system, are loyal and frequent users. It's no secret, the more often your users call, the more successful your BBS becomes. Another benefit is advertising. Users who feel a part of deciding what is on a BBS will carry the torch to others. They will tell their friends to call. There is nothing better than this kind of personal, "word-of-mouth" advertising. THE NOSE KNOWS As a BBS operator you have to be part journalist, part public relations person and part advertising executive. An old joke tells us that news is the process of sticking your nose into someone else's business. Public relations and advertising is sticking your business into someone else's nose. Just as a journalist communicates with words, so does the BBS operator. High quality, 24-bit graphics images via modem are possible, but the industry is just beginning to blossom. Even when it does come to full flower, words will continue to be the most important method of communicating your ideas and messages. The bulletin board format presents a unique opportunity to communicate on a very personal level. You have a captive audience, but it is one you can easily lose if you insult or boor them. One of the biggest problems I see with bulletin board systems are screen-after-screen of rambling, boring discourses on meaningless topics. Most people who call into a BBS want to get right to the heart of the system. If it is shareware you feature, you have to assume your callers are interested in getting that shareware. What they don't want is to wade through a long introduction about something they probably don't care about. It may all seem interesting to you, but remember, it is your customers you need to please -- without them you have no business. BASIC RULES OF JOURNALISM If you do need to post messages, you should try to adhere to the basic rules of journalism. * Keep Your Message Brief. Researchers tell us that the average person's attention span is only about 30 seconds. In print, that means only 75 words! This may not sound like much, but think about it. We live in a world of 30-second messages. The world of television and radio revolves around the 30-second commercial. Just think of the lasting impression these short clips have on our lives. Who can forget "I can't believe I ate the whole thing, " "Where's the beef!" or "You deserve a break today." The bottom line is, if you can't say it in about 75 words, you don't understand what you want to say. * Use Headlines. Headlines not only communicate a lot in a short space, but can leave a more lasting impression than volumes of material. Again, keep it short. A headline should never take up more than two lines and one is much better. Each line should be no longer than 25 characters including spaces. * Style. Say what you want to say as quickly as you can. Get the five w's (who, what, when , where, why) into your lead sentence. Use short sentences with active verbs to give your message some impact. Which has more punch: "Deficits will hurt our company" or "Deficits will spread a devastating poison through the economic bloodstream of our company." Use descriptive words and paint word pictures. A good example is a recent appeal for money to support animal rights. They could have simply said, "Send money so we can take care of the millions of abandoned dogs and cats." Instead their appeal was much more human and emotional. The message read in part, "Imagine yourself alone and starving. You are on a cement street surrounded by cement buildings. The buildings have no doors and no windows. The street is endless. Hope is gone. This is what an abandoned dog or cat faces when its turned loose in the city." Don't be afraid to use humor. On a small BBS system, this is often the best approach to getting a message across. Just remember to keep it within the bounds of good taste and not offend anyone. * Avoid. Fancy, stilted wording and exaggeration is never good. This applies to the visual presentation as well as the written. A message that has four different colors, and every other word flashing is annoying not interesting. You should also keep this advice in mind when designing your menus. I call dozens of BBSs every week. To be honest, there are few that I have any interest in calling a second time. The menus are so confusing on most that I get a headache just trying to decipher what is available. Just because you have 256 colors available, doesn't mean you have to use them all in every menu. Unless it is absolutely necessary, flashing letters detract rather than enhance the look of your menus. One system I called recently had a full screen Ansi menu with 15 different colors and 25 possible selections all woven into a cute drawing that looked like the Roman Coliseum complete with columns. To make it worse, when you did make a selection, the next menu painted over the main menu. The next menu did the same. It wasn't long before I had five menus on the same screen, one on top of the other. The result was a confusion of conflicting colors and a thoroughly useless set of menus. I am sure this took days or, maybe, weeks to program. I am also sure the Sysop and his friends thought it was wonderful. This approach may be fine for the hobbyist who is running a board for his or her own amusement, but it is definitely not a way to keep paying customers. The technology can be seductive, the key is to use it wisely. Once again, the best advise is to KEEP IT SIMPLE. GETTING OUT THE WORD The same principles that apply to running your BBS like a news service apply to telling news organizations about your BBS. There is no reason why you cannot get your local newspaper to carry a story about your bulletin board. Perhaps you are running a board that deals with home repairs, consumer information or news on local government. This is exactly the kind of a story a local paper would love to have. Using the principle we discussed earlier about writing short, concise messages, develop a single page press release describing your service. Be sure to clearly describe what you are offering and highlight the high tech aspect of the medium. This story has all the elements news editors look for in a feature story: a local angle, new technology, community involvement, and, perhaps a service that is genuinely needed. You might even want to become a media resource for your local paper. A media resource is an expert upon whom newspapers and broadcast stations depend for specialized information and advise. You could be the expert on computers. The result would be that you would be quoted on any major story involving computer technology. Along with your name, you would likely also have the name of your BBS mentioned in the story. Typically, the story has your comments in quotes followed by: "said Joe Doe, who runs the Know-it-All Bulletin Board in Des Moines." This kind of exposure would certainly not hurt your subscriptions. Running your BBS like a news service doesn't mean you have to go to journalism school or even buy a hat and a trench coat. It simply means thinking about what your callers want and then giving it to them in a pleasing, easy to understand manner. [Jim Thompson is Managing Editor at Western News Service in Los Angeles, California. He also operates the Philip Morris Racing Information System BBS used by over 400 journalists to access up-to-the-minute automobile race results and track-side reports. He can be reached by e-mail at 321-4127@mcimail.com - Editor]