Speaking of SouthCoastToday, check out these Caspio-powered treats

• SouthCoastToday: Christmas Lights Finder
• SouthCoastToday: Santa Finder

Fred Harwood tells me that the former was seeded by the Web department, which went on an excursion to check out some displays: "It was either a fun way to be productive or a productive way to have some fun."

Amen! And happy holidays to all!

Camp Guide winner

As the readers of this blog already know, San Joaquin Media Group was our Camp Guide challenge winner. But am posting here to close the loop on the previous post, and so we can share the entries with the rest of our colleagues.

Entry	Score
San Joaquin	8.367
Hudson Valley	8.200
Pocono Mountains	8.067
Southcoast	7.500
Cape Cod	3.100

One of the judges indicated that she wished she lived in Stockton, because some of the camps there sounded great for her 7-year-old. That judge also liked San Joaquin's info on fees.

Another judge: "Without a doubt, they are all quite good.... It was important to me to see the camp categories on the first page (sports, religion, nature, girl/boy/coed, overnight, etc.) and also to be able to access the camp's website easily."

Most had trouble opening Cape Cod's in IE, something Greg warned against when he submitted his entry. Given that he is deep into readying his site for its redesign launch, we were impressed that he even took a stab at the challenge.

Many thanks for the entries, and many more thanks to the judges, who turned around the scorecards very quickly in time for our monthly round of calls with the publishers earlier this week. All of the judges had their name tossed into a bowl for a drawing, and the winner, Ruth McCleod, will be receiving a Panera gift card as a prize, too.

Stay tuned for the next challenge, coming later this month!

Wi-Fi Hot Spots in the Poconos

Our runner-up in the Wi-fi Challenge is the Pocono Record, which posted its map of Wi-Fi Hot Spots in the Poconos yesterday afternoon, first with a tease from their News Updates block and later with a small barker, too.

Like a few of you, Marta and co. had a few weeks ago published an article about wi-fi hotspots in the paper and online (teased the days earlier with a UGC solicitation in their Noon Update), so they had a good base of data to start with. But the landing page, complete with the map, is a much more user-friendly way to present that data, and becomes a place to continue to build the library of knowledge about an increasingly important utility in the community.

As a runner-up prize, the Pocono staff will be receiving a Dunkin' Donuts gift card, so that they may celebrate their success with Boxes o' Joe and tasty treats.

Wiki/UGC/Guide to airport outlets

Wiki and UGC is probably redundant, eh?

Nevertheless, check out AirPower Home, coming to my attention today via my daily Thrillist e-mail. It's a guide to airport power outlet locations.

Job to be done, baby! Outlets are always at a premium when you need to stock up on battery juice before boarding a flight. A sample:

Boston, MA

• Logan has several phone card vending machines which are plugged into dual outlets. The second AC jack is exposed, but you may want to bring a thin extension card because a blocky power adapter won't fit.
• There are some tables with outlets near the wall in the dining areas (near Sbarro, Starbucks, etc.), but the cord will go across a walkway, so make sure it's long enough to lay on the ground so you don't trip anybody.
• If your flight leaves from a lower level terminal (i.e. near the ground), there are a couple plugs behind the rows of seats. You may have to push the seats out a couple inches to get to them though.

Wi-fi challenge

OK, folks. I'm issuing a challenge. We'll make it a contest, actually.

First Ottaway Web site to have a wi-fi guide like this will win for its staff use a Pure Digital PSV-352 60 Minute Point-and-Shoot Camcorder (shown off by Hank Ankerman of the AP at the assignment editors conference and now in use at the Pocono Record).

Requirements:

• Must show a map of the wi-fi locations (Patrick Mullen has an app he's willing to share to help you with this).


• Must include ability for users to submit new locations and update existing ones.

It would also be good to distinguish between free wi-fi and paid access.

(Note: The Tacoma map came to my attention today courtesy of MediaShift.)

NYT: Photo Scavenger Hunt

If it were my universe and I were king, I would definitely steal... umm... borrow this idea for UGC photo galleries in any one of our markets. Certainly there could be any number of riffs on the idea, tied to either specific events, places or topics -- or just as a general, regularly scheduled scavenger hunt.

Plus, you could even use this tactic to solicit photos for specfic needs you have in building guides. You're all creating guides for wifi hotspots, right? You need photos to illustrate, right? Solicit them in a UGC slideshow, and then repurpose them for the guide.