One quick suggestion to piggy back Jeanne's report: Many of you that have blogs also have RSS feeds, but don't list the blog feeds among the RSS offerings (and almost all of the blogs have RSS). Would be great for the segment of your audience that's acquiring your content via RSS if you listed ALL of your RSS offerings on your RSS pages.
(You also should also know that you have AP RSS feeds at your disposal, which point to your co-branded, AP hosted stories. See Cape Cod's RSS page. All you have to do is plug in your sites AP code to make them work for you. Every traffic driver helps!)
From: Jeanne Hubbard [mailto:jhubbard@record-eagle.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 4:34 PM
To: IAC Ottaway
Subject: Blog Report
Awhile back I asked for a show of hands on who's doing blogs. Here's the responses:
Plattsburgh: http://blog.pressrepublican.com/weblog/
- Just one blog from a freelancer, unedited ("after a few weeks it was obvious that the entries needed no editing whatsoever")
- Hopes to add newsroom blogs soon. Newsroom blogs will be edited in the newsroom. Editor is concerned, however, that they won't be able to keep it up with enough frequency (shooting for three entries each week).
New Bedford: http://www.southcoastresponse.com/board/ubbthreads.php?Cat=0 (scroll down to the blogs section)
- Several blogs from outside sources (freelancer writer, local radio personality, etc.)
- Sportswriter blogged from Red Sox spring training earlier this year, with mixed results (he did great, but there wasn’t a whole lot of reader interaction with him)
- Unedited: "This has backfired only once, on a blog we had from a former FT employee who was getting disgruntled with the lack of freelance work he was getting from us."
- Intends to pursue some more beat specific blogs in the near future.
- 5 bloggers who are all from the newsroom
- No word on whether they are edited?
Nantucket:
- "No blogs here. Too many concerns about oversight, lack of someone to monitor content, etc."
Pocono: http://Blogs.ThePoconos.com
- Three bloggers: two staff, one columnist
- Unedited
Santa Cruz: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/blog/
- Mostly written by editors, with the exception of the book blog and the sports blog, which go unedited.
Seacost: http://www.blogthecoast.com
- 90% community contributed, 10% employee blogs
- No editing
Traverse City: http://blogs.record-eagle.com
- Several bloggers: Myself + freelance columnists who blog unpaid
- I or an editor read over the blogs before posting, but generally post without much editing
- We have had success with the "temporary" blog in which someone blogs throughout an event. We had a student blog from the National Spelling Bee and most recently a blog last week from our Film Festival. Both generated great page views.
- Staff blogs are not on the horizon. Due to our perpetual short-staffed situation, the Editor feels that blogs would detract from the daily work of getting out the paper.
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