Final JOUR 352 Blog Post
Bloomberg does well to serve its audience, which is primarily investors, business owners, and people interested in the economy. As a company, their Bloomberg Professional Terminal is a useful asset, as it offers a unique set of tools at a high price to customers who do, and will continue to demand their product.
The company’s website provides quality information in a news industry (business news) that offers loyal audiences. The Bloomberg mobile app is another nice feature; considering the nature of their clientele, easy-to-access equity indices and bond rates are a nice touch. Despite all the good features of the company and the site, their main competition according to the Hoover’s database is Dow Jones.
Though Dow Jones is a publicly traded company whereas Bloomberg is private, the latter would do well to compete for the same audience. Business news readers are an excellent niche group in terms of loyalty points. When many newspaper companies failed their paywall attempts, the Wall Street Journal managed to increase its subscriptions. The audience is there, and there a few things Bloomberg could do to maximize its competitive value.
While a lot of the reporting on Bloomberg’s site is done traditionally – talking-head videos, single-media stories – the site does have a unique videos page called Insights that is tucked away in a dark corner. The site should direct traffic there, since the videos are short and by far the most creative things on the sight.
The company could also consider changing the user interface on its mobile app. While the app does provide great information, it’s very plain, black-and-orange layout doesn’t necessarily encourage a lot of use. All things considered, Bloomberg seems poised to hold, and potentially further its solid position in the business news industry.
Blog Post #5
Bloomberg’s site design appear to make use of eye-tracking studies, particularly on its home page.
Breaking news bar
The site presents a market snapshot at the very top of the page, and considering its audience, this is a very convenient location as users can see an informational graphic on the day’s market trends. Below snapshot and above the common banner ad, users are immediately encouraged to find whatever they are looking for via a navigation toolbar. Before the fold, the home page uses a three-column setup with top headlines in the middle, lead story (with photo) on the left, and top videos on the right. And when applicable, users’ attention is directed to specific news stories via a breaking news bar that appears below the navigation bar.
A useful tool, Bloomberg’s navigation toolbar includes subheads under almost all of the sections. The subheads, or subsections appear when a user hovers the mouse over a tab. Another indication of eye-tracking use, Bloomberg’s site
When hovering over an item in the navigation bar, more options appear
design becomes increasingly basic as a user scrolls below the fold, and this holds true for almost every section of the site.
Users can find additional info at the bottom of the page
Users can access virtually everything Bloomberg has to offer on the web through the home page. Bloomberg TV, radio, and professional (the analytic service particularly useful for investors and business analysts) are all available through at the top of the page, as well as the Company’s magazine wing. Users can find links to foreign-language Bloomberg sites at the very bottom of the page, as well as information about careers, books, blogs, and premium services.
The three-column style is fairly consistent on each of the site’s pages, with the largest deviation occurring on the news page. The news page is arguably the most basic section on the site, simply featuring blocks of headlines. And again, with its audience in mind, a market snapshot remains present on each section in the same location (very top left), though the graphic is minimized.
A link to corrections aren’t available on the home page (at least that I could find, even when using the find function), but links to the Company’s social media pages are available at the very top and bottom of the page.
The site features a “quick” page as well. This page acts as an alternative to its news section, as users can see a simplified, consistent (top to bottom) three-column setup of top headlines in the middle, market indices on the right, and a navigation column on the left that completely stays in view by moving up and down as the user scrolls.
Ultimately Bloomberg’s site construction enables users to find information they want quickly, and the information is presented in a non-busy, intuitive manner.
Blog Post #3
Like most financial news sites, Bloomberg’s markets page features most of the site’s charts and graphs. Similar to Yahoo! or The Wall Street Journal, it includes a basic overview graph of indexes in the U.S., Asia and Europe.
With its audience in mind, Bloomberg’s markets page offers some useful tools for investors and professional market-watchers. Users can view the top (and worst) stock market performers of the day on the “Gainers & Losers” page, and the site’s “Earnings Calendar” keeps investors abreast of the latest financial reports.
Those interested in the stock market typically have a few companies they routinely check-in on, and as with other financial news sites, the first few letters of a company’s name or ticker symbol yield relevant options when typed in the site’s search bar. After a user chooses one of the suggestions, the site provides info about the company, such as its key statistics, stock prices, executives and a profile of the company. Members of the site can also add companies to a watchlist, where they could view all their investments in one place.
Bloomberg’s Personal Finance page offers some interesting tools as well. The page features a few calculators that let users input their own information to create their own data reports, like the retirement calculator.
The site’s broadcasts are largely traditional through the company’s television and radio programs. The site enables users to view live television and watch archived video clips, both in CNBC-style, talking-head format. The site also features a slew of radio shows and podcasts, and as with video, users can either listen live or choose (or download) clips or podcasts.
The site produces “less traditional” content as well. Also under the Personal Finance tab is a “Real Cost of” page, which does picture-with-text slideshows on several subjects, like the real cost of Easter. The Bloomberg “Insights” page includes several short, animated, PSA-style videos that are meant to give perspective and insight into major trends and events, such as the growing online-dating industry.
Bloomberg also makes use of blogs. Users can view personal pages for popular columnists/bloggers like Ezra Klein, big subjects like the site’s blogs on sustainability and technology, and a live blog – the site provides live-blog coverage of certain political events.
The site fosters community in a widely-used manner: comments. But the site’s magazine wing, Businessweek.com, includes a “discussed” tab in a “Most popular” box posted on the right of all its stories. When viewing recent stories, users can choose a filter option to see what stories have the most comments, and frequenters of the site could even see their user name listed on the “Top Commenters” list.
Blog #2
Bloomberg’s news coverage and writing style is, for the most part, traditional.
Visitors to the site won’t find a lot of interactive media to tell breaking news stories, nor will they find much unique news coverage for more enterprising stories.
Instead, visitors to Bloomberg’s site will get a lot of breaking news and smart analytic coverage of business and politics.
Bloomberg’s news coverage is versatile in the sense that it doesn’t strictly cover the financial markets and politicians, but it dedicates an entire section of its website to sustainability. The philosophy behind Bloomberg’s environmental coverage is that strategic resources are steadily becoming more difficult to accumulate, and the site features a blog – The Grid – which provides commentaries and analysis on carbon emissions, droughts, temperature change, clean energy technologies and other environmental issues.
Bloomberg releases stories in different forms. Some breaking news stories are brief, simply providing the news with little analysis. Other stories include subheads – which Bloomberg seems fond of – to avoid long pages of text in lengthy paragraphs. The site even allows a little aggregation in some stories, like this piece about sequestration which was a response to another site’s article.
Bloomberg’s videos are also traditional in the sense that many of them simply include talking heads. This style of video reporting most likely comes from the fact that Bloomberg does T.V., and videos like this look similar to what you would see after turning on CNBC in the middle of the day.
Some of their videos do offer unique reporting, like this video about Disney’s relationship with Lucasfilm.
Aggregation Assignment
Maryland could soon have some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country.
The Washington Post reported that the state’s senate passed legislation Thursday that would require individuals to register their fingerprints, go through a four-hour training program and pass tougher background checks to obtain a license to buy a firearm.
Gov. Martin O’Malley proposed the original legislation, which faced at least 75 amendments on the senate floor during debates, but nevertheless, the bill passed the Maryland Senate with bipartisan support, according to the Washington Post.
O’Malley’s proposal came in the wake of shootings in Newtown, Conn. Dec. 14, when an assailant used an assault rifle to fire rounds from high capacity magazines in an elementary school, killing 26 people, mostly children.
Maryland’s senate passed a stronger version of O’Malley’s legislation, which includes a ban on assault weapons and ammunition clips that hold more than ten rounds. The bill also provides a one-year grace period for those who own assault weapons, but haven’t registered them yet.
The bill will not become law until it also passes the Maryland House of Delegates, where the proposed legislation will likely undergo further amendments. If it passes the House, the final step in the law-making process will be for O’Malley to sign it into law.
The proposed legislation would appear to directly address the problems of the Newtown, Conn. shooting, but many legislators argue that the new law will not solve the problem.
According to the Washington Post, some Maryland senators believe the bill infringes upon 2nd Amendment rights and still won’t keep guns out of criminals’s hands.
Blog Post #1 – Intro
Bloomberg.com is the website for Bloomberg L.P., a privately-owned business and financial news provider. New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg founded the company in 1982 and remains the company’s principal owner.
Bloomberg’s philosophy is to give decision makers around the globe plenty of information, and they mainly accomplish this task through Bloomberg Professional services. When the company began, its professional service was the main attraction, and big-time investment bank Merrill Lynch was their first customer. In the 1990s, the company expanded its model to include news services.
Bloomberg has continued to expand since adding news services, and today Bloomberg produces original content in digital, radio and television mediums. The company has also published more than 400 books through its Bloomberg Press wing.
Despite its versatility, Bloomberg’s cash cow is its financial data and analytic wing – Bloomberg Professional – which offers charts, ratios, projections, expectations and other information for traders and investors looking for data to support their strategies.
The Bloomberg terminal, which can often come with a subscription to Bloomberg Professional, is a massive software program (it can also come with actual Bloomberg hardware) that enables users to see all kinds of information about publicly traded companies, such as their top shareholders, equity information and analytic reports from reputable firms suggesting whether to buy, hold or sell stock.
The terminal is far from cheap – it costs nearly $20,000 – and accounted for 85% of the company’s revenue as of 2011, according to Privco.com.
The company also provides data and analytic services in law, government and energy industries, publishes two magazines – Bloomberg Businessweek and Bloomberg Markets, and in 2011 acquired the Bureau of National Affairs, an information source for labor, tax and regulatory lawyers.
Daniel Doctoroff serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg L.P., Peter Grauer is the company’s chairman and a long-time board member, and Matthew Winkler is editor-in-chief of the two-time Pulitzer finalist Bloomberg News.
Ultimately, Bloomberg is a giant in global business and financial information. They penetrate all available mediums, including mobile, and boast “C-level executives” and “the global financial elite” as its most loyal audience members.
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