This Mass Comm Week, I enjoyed Trei Brundrett’s discussion the most about the importance of coding and building communities.
Brundrett, who is Chief Product Officer at Vox, doesn’t come from a coding background and in fact got a degree in astronomy.
The reason Vox Media is so successful is they’ve created a responsive platform, which values reader’s inputs and creates a platform where people can engage with one another. What I learned from Brundrett is you can’t throw a comments page under a story and say you’re interacting with readers. Vox filled a void and opened something like a discussion board for readers, kind of like Reddit, but a lot more aesthetically pleasing.
VOX IS GOING AFTER PREMIUM DIGITAL
Brundrett got into coding, because he wanted to build things. It’s just that simple. It’s possible to create beautiful websites without having a computer science background. Brundrett had a vision of what kind of website and community he wanted to help build and did it.
Vox’s clear mission and dedication to its readers show; they’ve built a community for over 50
million readers around the world.
Why it’s important to build communities