Rethinking your approach in the face of New Media?

My two month hiatus from posting to my blog is over. We had a lot of work going on with our efforts to ramp up the Interactive Media Department at The Day. While I wish we had more to show for the work, I've come to realize that our 'tacking' has been an important phase to go through. By the end of December I will be able to write and introduce our first real initiative, but that is not what I want to write about today.

Recently, I found out about the Rethink the Mercury News project. For the past 3 months the Mercury News has been going around talking to members of the San Jose community to try and get a handle on how their company needs to change to meet current needs. As part of this effort they have launched a public site where they are sharing their thoughts and engaging in conversations with readers about the project.

It is very refreshing to see a publishing company appear to take a top to bottom look at what needs to change in its approach to serving their community. I stress appear as only the outcome of this project will show how encompassing a change the Mercury News actually embarked upon.

If nothing else, the public Rethink site could be a valuable tool for others in the industry looking to change their mode of operations. There is value in the model of the approach as well as possible value in the information that is distributed through the site.

I continue to hold-out hope that the Newspaper Industry can react and change in the face of the disruptive innovation going on in the industry. This change is going to take bold reactions like Rethink the Mercury News. While history has shown that normally it is not the incumbent who comes out successfully in the face of such disruption, we all know technology has rewritten a lot of the historical business lessons.

A salute to those trying to create the new lessons.

Opening pandora's box

I always thought opeing Pandora's box was supposed to be a bad thing. Well today I stumbled upon Pandora the site. If you're into music, this seems to be a really 'cool app'.

Pandora allows you to create 'Stations' based on your favorite musicians and/or songs. Based on these entries Pandora selects similar music to play on your station based on their "Music Gnenome Project".

I've been playing with the site for awhile here and so far so good. I've even added the Pandora App to my Facebook page so that I can share my music likes with visitors there. While, I am writing about Facebook I also recommend Shelfari as another cool app to add to pages. Just like sharing music, through Shelfari I can now share the books that I have read with my friends.

Happy Browsing!

A cornucopia of crimemap mash-ups

A number of news sites have started deploying Mash-ups of crime logs from their communities. Danny Sanchez of the Orlando Sentinel has put together a collection of these mash-ups from various outlets on his blog Journalistopia.

I have not had a chance to review many of these examples myself, but it does appear to be a great collection. If you have been thinking of utilizing crimemap mash-ups on your site, this would be a great starter location for some ideas.

Giving further props to Sanchez for this cartoon from his Journalistopia Cartoon collection.

Another thing that makes me go hmmmm?!?!?!

Back in June a wrote about "things that make me go hmmmm?!?!?!". I have another item to add to that list.

I really like to dislike that article
When a site allows me to "Rate this Story", what am I rating? Is it the content of the article, the choice of words the reporter used, whether I thought it was "fair and balanced" or is their some other standard?

For instance, 4,000+ readers have rated a recent MSNBC article on Hurricane Dean. The average rating is 4 out of a possible 5. Hmmmm?!?!?! O.K., I just do not know, and I hate to admit it, but when I just don't know, i just don't vote.

A look at Gannett's Information Center

Wired has published a good article about Gannett’s Information Center efforts. I think this is a must read for everyone in the Newspaper industry. Here are the key points I took from the article.

• Need to question every assumption about how a newspaper gathers, writes, and distributes news.
  
• Content mix of professional journalism and amateur contributions is the future.
  
• More than half of the advertisers in cincyMOMS are new to Cincinnati Enquirer.
  
• Two ‘Big Ideas’ of effort; Involve Readers in every aspect of process and take ‘hyper-local’ approach to news coverage.
  
• Try different approaches, submissions grew after third attempt at call to action title; “Get Published” was what worked.
  
• Readers submission do more than drive page-views online, it provides content for community papers.
  
• Request for assistance with investigative piece provided access to experts, traffic growth, community engagement, and forced fixes to the issue covered.
  
• Readers transform to active participants online.
  
• Initial focus was making effort work editorially, now concentrating on parallel strategies for advertising.
  
• Des Moines Register had 184 new advertisers into the paper by march 2007, as sales increased 44% over the previous year.

As a side note. I had to chuckle after I printed the Wired article available from their "Print" icon on the story page. The placement of a Leader-Board advertisement on this page has defeated the purpose of having a print friendly version. The width of the ad has blown the page layout beyond a standard 8 1/2 X 11 page size and you lose the last 1/2 inch of the article when printing. Then again, perhaps this is just another one of those "experimental layouts" from Wired!

LoudonExtra.com, can it get local-local-local

On Monday, Rob Curley and his team at the Washington Post launched their “Hyper-Local” project LoudonExtra.com. On Tuesday the WP conducted an online discussion with Curley and Caroline H. Little, WP-Newsweek Interactive CEO and Publisher. It was a good discussion that helped to shed a little more light on what LoudonExtra is not yet, and what it hopes to become.

It is clear from the transcripts of the online discussion and this posts on Curley’s website that LoudonExtra is a work in progress. They have been working on the site for 6 months and put out the initial version with many new features to come.

My only concern is if perhaps they jumped out of the gates a little too soon, as it appears there are fundamentals missing from the site. Don’t get me wrong, the design is beautiful, but as the saying goes, “You only get one chance for a first impression.” After spending some time on the site for the first time I am forced to ask;

Where is the Interaction?
O.K., now every place I have seen any comments from Mr. Curley about this project he has said these features are to come. I have no doubt there will be some ‘cool’ new tools launched through LoudonExtra. I am willing to guess we will see some new Facebook Apps in here. I am just amazed though that this site was launched without a single interactive tool ready on the site. In fairness, yes I can comment on stories, but I mean, I can’t even send an email to a reporter from a story on the site.


Where is the integration with WP?
This may be the biggest challenge for this project. The site is smartly integrated with the WP. For instance, if you type http://www.LoudonExtra.com into your browser you will be redirected to http://LoudonExtra.WashingtonPost.com. As well, the LoudonExtra site is clearly branded in the upper right corner as part of the WashingtonPost.com. You'll be hard pressed though to find any mention and/or link over to LoudonExtra.com from the WashingtonPost.com. Even if you go to the Community Guide for Loudon County there are no links over to LoudonExtra.

Further, stories are being kept separate to the two sites, even when they are the same story. Today LoudonExtra leads with a profile of the upcoming Loudon County fair, "Final Preparations Underway for Fair". This same story is on WP.com as "Going Through Hoops".

I posted a comment on the WP version of the story directing readers to the LoudonExtra version. In the comment I directed readers to all of the additional content that was available on the LoudonExtra version. (I posted the comment knowing if it would also appear on the LoudonExtra version. My guess was right, it did not appear.) It seems it would have been smarter for WP.com to direct their readers there in the first place. This is especially true seeing that I found the article on WP.com by going to their Loudon Extra page. Interestingly this page had a small banner above the headlines for LoudonExtra.com. Why wasn’t I sent there in the first place??

The biggest advantage of integrating with the WP.com is taking advantage of their solid existing viewership. I am sure that a number of those site visitors are actually from Loudon County. It is clear that the WP wants to be branded in front of the visitors to LoudonExtra.com, perhaps WP.com could return the favor.

Where is the Sense of Community?
Now, I am not familiar with the Loudon County area, but I am going to take a guess that most residents of the county identify more with their individual town than they do with the county. According to the county website, Loudon is a county of an estimated 271,987 residents, living in a 571 square mile area with 68 public schools. Well from this guy who has spent the previous 10 years living in a small coastal town in Maine, that’s huge!

If my assumption about where Loudon County residents identify with is true, then I would guess LoudonExtra will probably need to get down to that level. I am not suggesting there needs to be a “LoudonCountyTownNameHere”Extra for each community, but the site at least needs to get residents to that level. I would also say this is important even from an outsider’s point of view. Say for instance I woke up and decided I wanted to move to Loudon County. Well, if I visited the new LoudonExtra moving page I would not even know which towns I could move to if I wanted to be a Loudon county resident.

Where is the money going to come from?
So, now I get to my biggest concern I have with LoudonExtra. The only revenue producing source of the site appears to be banner advertising. By the way, I hope Long Windows is getting one hell of a rate as they appear to be the only advertiser on the site.

According to their online discussion dialogue, both Curley and Little plan for the site to get to profitability. But twice I’ve heard Curley during conference presentations asked, "How do you pay for this stuff?" Both times, he dodged the question with "I am an editor and that’s not my end of the business." This is my only criticism of Rob Curley, he does not seem concerned about how to monetize his projects.

For instance, in Curley’s Welcome Letter he explains the efforts they went through to build the restaurant Guide.

"There are more than 300 restaurants in Loudoun County. We should know because we called them all and asked each of them more than 10 questions, including when they start and stop cooking. The reason for this was simple — sometimes you need to know more than an address or a phone number. Besides, knowing where you can still get a steak at midnight can be useful information from time to time."

I wonder if one of those ten questions asked if the restaurant would be interested in having a sales representative contact them about ways they could promote their business through LoudonExtra.com. I would be surprised if it was, but if I was the owner of a restaurant in Loudon County as was asked that question. I know what my response would be

"No, I think you pretty much covered everything I need to let my customers know with your previous nine questions, but thank you!"

I will continue to visit LoudonExtra to watch how it evolves. I just hope the residents of Loudon County will also continue to want to visit through its evolution and that someone there can figure out how to pay for all this "cool stuff" they are doing there.

Things that make me go hmmmm?!?!?!

Here is a random collection of items regarding the newspaper industry that still leave me scratching my head throughout the day.

Extra - Extra - Read all about it
Why is it you see newspapers full of references, house ads and sidebars, directing readers to all the cool stuff they can find in the newspaper's online site, but you seldomly see references in newspaper online sites directing visitors into the cool stuff they can find in the print newspaper?

More - More, gimme more
Why are most newspaper companies focused on how to make their websites really content rich rather than real revenue producers. I mean I am sorry, but a banner ad will never be as effective at getting some one's attention as will a full page color advertisement. Likewise, unless newspaper companies figure out new revenue models for online, the curve up will never replace what is being lost in the curve down.

Well ain't that special
Why do newspaper companies seem afraid to try and create unique content for their print editions. I mean if you create a great Flash interactive info graphic for online, its not like you feel you have to reproduce that in the paper. So why, do we feel like every little piece of content in the paper has to be online?

Uhh, you can't say that
What is the issue most newspapers have with allowing user moderated comments online?

So, what again am I paying for
Why don't more newspapers reward their print subscribers with online benefits/enhancement.

Yes, mam your right that really should be online
Why does it seem newspapers are constantly going out of their way to make those who do not pay them money happy, while constantly disappointing those that do pay them money?

I would be interested to know the things that make you go hmmmm?!?!?!

A Monday morning distraction

I find the online medium's ability to take you on a wild ride you had not intended to take one of its greatest strengths. For instance, this morning I came in and started my daily email check. This includes reviewing the various Google Alerts I am subscribed to.

This morning my 'community journalism' alert picked up an interesting submission on Jake Jarvis's Buzz Machine. This submission was on the recent announced Layoffs at the News & Record in Greensboro. By the way, his bottom line suggestion is that everyone in the newspaper industry needs to get some training on interactivity. If you have not figured this one out yet on your own, shame on you. After all, even if your newsroom lives and breathes interactivity, if your salespeople don't know how to sell it and your publisher doesn't know how to vision it, your still dead in the water.

As I was reading some the comments to Jake's submission I saw a link to a presentation on why newspapers have an opportunity to do local. This presentation is a 67 slide deck that appears to have been presented on June 8th at @media 2007. The presentation was given by Simon Wilson on the approach by Lawrence.com and LJworld.com. I have long been a fan of the online work at the Lawerence Journal World and so gladly went through the presentation. Slide 65 of the presentation provided me with links to the personal sites of the team behind World Online.

I spent a little bit of time visiting the team member sites to see if there were any ideas/thoughts I might grab. I struck gold with playgroundblues.com. This is the personal site of Nathan Borror, Senior Designer at World Online. I found his May 6th post, Transmedia Newspapers.

In this submission he writes of the need for the newspaper industry to take a transmedia storytelling approach rather than a parallel approach to how they disseminate information. I have been spewing this concept for years.

I have a real problem with how most every newspaper company is basically doing what they have done for years in print, online. As an industry I think we all need to try and figure out what are the best uses for print and online. The real gold I found though in his submission was his Fortune Cookie analogy. It works, and it is an analogy I will add to my spew to hopefully help get my point across.

So an hour later, some new news, a new person to possible add to my Linkedin network, a new book to read, a new analogy, and a new blog entry. Not bad for the beginning of a new week. See what I mean about those wild rides?

Attack of the "BLOGS" (redo)

Below is a Blog entry I made this spring while I was still at VillageSoup. As much as everyone talks about blogs it still seems there are a lot of people who are confused with what a blog actually is. I've always liked this piece I wrote and thought it would be worth posting here at my new blog site.

The other day the topic of Weblogs (blogs as they are now commonly referred) came up in a discussion here at the Soup. The discussion was centered on what actually is a blog.

Some believed that a true blog is a web posting that includes links out to other webpages. Others believed that a blog is any posting on a regular basis by an individual on a specific topic. With these definitions in mind I decided to go and try to figure out the actual definition.

So how would one go about trying to accomplish this task?

First step, I used Wikipedia.com. For those that have not heard of it, this site is a free encyclopedia where users are in charge of maintaining the content.

According to Wikipedia, a blog is "a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order." The definition continues on to include everything from the history of blogs, the legal issues surrounding blogs, and much more. Ironically most wikipedia definitions are entered in a traditional blog format with links out to other webpages.

With this information in hand I decided I should google it! This search provided me with "2,060,000,000" related page results. The results included sponsored links for a number of blogging sites and free listings of related pages on the web. Interestingly the first non-paid result was a link to the Wikipedia definition page for blog.

With my Wikipedia information in hand and visits to a number of sites through my Google search I was ready to start working on my definition. But first I had to finish my normal morning readings. See each morning there are a few sites I like to check (cnn, espn, boston.com, fast company) before my day at work really gets going. I guess this is my modern day version of reading the newspaper before work.

As happens more often than not on the web, I stumbled upon information that at that time I was not searching to find. I had moved on from trying to seek a definition for a blog, I was now just reading some general business news. I was at FastCompany.com reading a blog entry review of a new site, Knover.com, built to allow users to test the theory of six degrees of separation. Talk about a distraction!

While reading about knover.com I noticed that Fast Company had an about page for their blog, FC NOW. I figured I would check and see how they defined a blog. In the second paragraph I found a link to an essay, weblogs, a history and perspective written by Rebecca Blood.

So where does all this leave us in the search for a definition of blog. If you are still with me and have not gone off on your own distraction, you will recognize that this entry is a blog in the most traditional term. It is a journal entry that provides links out to a number of other webpages. It could have just as easily been my writing of a definition based on what I had learned on all of the sites linked to in this article with out providing the links. Heck, I could have even tried to make this a vlog like I posted early in the week. But that is a distraction for another day.

10 Web Marketing Tools

Earlier this year, I participated with Steve Hand of Know Technology in the the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville Chamber's Marketing Seminar Series – Marketing Your Business From A-Z. As part of my presentation, I showcased 10 tools businesses could utilize to assist in their marketing efforts.

I figured presnting information on these marketing tools would be a good way to launch my new Blog. Below are links to each of the services/products I presented. All of these include basic descriptions picked up from the particular websites.

Google AdWords
No matter what your budget, you can display your ads on Google and our advertising network. Connect with customers at the exact moment they're searching for your products or services, and only pay when people click your ads.

Yahoo Search Marketing
Access products and resources that help you connect with customers searching for what you sell.

Word Tracker
Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to their or their client's business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.

Constant Contact
More than 90,000 small businesses and associations use Constant Contact®, the leading permission-based email marketing solution for small business.

Ennect
The convenience of four powerful tools in one simple toolkit makes ennect the ideal eMarketing software choice for growing organizations. Use just one tool if that's all you need, or use more than one, and experience major time saving benefits such as shared contact lists, singular login information and one easy interface to learn.

Ebay Merchant Solutions
Grow your business with eBay's Merchant eCommerce Solutions! With millions of buyers worldwide, eBay offers a fast, easy, and cost effective way to increase your sales and reach new customers.

MediaBids
An online marketplace where advertisers and print publications buy and sell ad space through a online auction process.

Google Analytics
Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. Focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.

TopRank Blog
Provides up to date news, resources and information on the search engine industry as well as tactics ranging from search engine optimization to blog marketing and online public relations.