GOOD is a cross-media platform that provides award-winning content to a growing audience of pragmatic idealists.
Last year we were hired to help develop the brand strategy and visual identity for GOOD and as part of that project, we built their short-term website. The goal of the website was to promote their innovative subscription drive “Choose GOOD” — subscribe to GOOD Magazine and 100% of your money goes to help the organization of your choice. Amazing, but true.
To support the campaign, the website had an integrated e-commerce system that provided instant results from the campaign. It also had a custom-built and fully integrated blogging system, laying the foundation for the larger website in the making.
Within one year of launch, GOOD’s online traffic had 1,600% organic growth with ziltch, zip, zero marketing dollars spent
And in the making it was. We further developed the Choose GOOD campaign and e-commerce functionality while extending the blogging system into a full-fledged publishing platform. In addition, the new website gave GOOD the ability to host all magazine content — both current and archive issues — free of charge.
The website and print magazine launched simultaneously in Fall 2006, but it didn’t stop there. We continued working with GOOD to open their publishing platform to their readers — allowing them to publish their own content to the website alongside GOOD’s editorials and within their own personal profile. The GOOD online community launched in December 2006.
The publishing platform itself is unique. Instead of a traditional blog where you have posts and comments, this system only has posts. Even “comments” are posts. So instead of commenting, a user responds with their own post and another user can respond to that post. And so on … creating a dialog that can splinter-off into sub-conversations and ultimately allow for a child post to become more relevent (in a certain context) then its parent.
In order to encourage and surface quality contributions, each post has an “It’s GOOD” button, allowing users to determine the most relevant content and important issues. And every post and vote a user makes ends up on their own personal profile blog. It’s a new level of transparency that allows people to explore their voice and the content they enjoy.
Within one year of launch, GOOD’s online traffic had 1,600% organic growth with ziltch, zip, zero marketing dollars spent. The GOOD website continues to be a platform for people to connect with each other and actively engage with the most important issues of our times and what matters most to them.