Press release: Ottaway Newspapers launches mobile-friendly sites

MIDDLETOWN, N.Y. (Feb. 25, 2009) - Ottaway Newspapers, the Local Media Group of Dow Jones, has launched mobile-friendly editions of its daily news Web sites for its media groups across the country.

The launch marks another milestone in Ottaway's ongoing mobile audience development effort, and is part of a larger content distribution approach geared toward pushing the company's local content and information to a wide variety of platforms.

"Seekers of news and information in our markets should be able to access our content on the platform that either they are most comfortable using, or that is most useful to them at the moment they need to be informed," said Sean Polay, Ottaway's product manager for distributed media. "We aim to serve the reader, and these mobile-friendly sites are a big step forward on that front."

The sites were launched by the company's digital product development team, led by Richard Hoover, and were rooted in a pilot project undertaken by Greg Bryant, online editor for Ottaway's Cape Cod Media Group based in Hyannis, MA. Their mobile site, m.capecodonline.com, was the first to launch, and was followed by the remaining media groups in rapid succession:

• Seacoast Media Group, Portsmouth, NH: m.seacoastonline.com
• Hudson Valley Media Group, Middletown, NY: m.recordonline.com
• Pocono Mountains Media Group, Stroudsburg, PA: m.poconorecord.com
• San Joaquin Media Group, Stockton, CA: m.recordnet.com
• Southern Oregon Media Group, Medford, OR: m.mailtribune.com and m.dailytidings.com

Ottaway's SouthCoast Media Group in New Bedford, MA, had a pre-existing mobile site powered by a third-party provider. Located at mobile.southcoasttoday.com, it remains in place, though it will eventually be transitioned to the shared Ottaway solution, Polay said.

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ABOUT OTTAWAY NEWSPAPERS
Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. (www.ottaway.com), is the Local Media Group of Dow Jones. Ottaway operates eight community media groups around the country that collectively are comprised of 8 daily and 15 weekly newspapers, several lifestyle magazines and other niche publications, and a multitude of affiliated Web sites in seven states.

Media Contact:
Sean Polay
Product Manager, Distributed Media
spolay@ottaway.com
774.313.6093

ABOUT DOW JONES
Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV; www.newscorp.com). Dow Jones is a leading provider of global business news and information services. Its Consumer Media Group publishes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, MarketWatch and the Far Eastern Economic Review. Its Enterprise Media Group includes Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Dow Jones Client Solutions, Dow Jones Indexes and Dow Jones Financial Information Services. Dow Jones owns 50% of SmartMoney and 33% of STOXX Ltd. and provides news content to radio stations in the U.S.

Mobile breaking news alerts in action

The scene: The Polay kitchen at breakfast. My wife, Brandy, and I are at the dining room table, sipping coffee while the kids scurry to get ready for school.

Sean, rising from the table: Guess I better get my act together and get to work.

(Blackberry buzzes on the counter.)

Brandy: Guess so. They're already buzzing you.

Sean, reading from Blackberry: "Route 6 West: Police and rescue responding to rollover, prior to exit 3 westbound, traffic in area slowed."

(Siren volume growing in the distance.)

Brandy: That must be where they're going.

(Fire truck races by our house, headed in the direction of Exit 3. It's followed shortly thereafter by a police car.)

Sean: Now that's what I call a breaking news alert!

Update: One of our Cape Cod readers replied to this post via Twitter today, indicating she wished she'd known about the accident above, so she could have avoided the traffic. I shared CapeCodOnline's alert sign-up link, for which she was very appreciative. Here are the rest of the links to sign up for mobile alerts in our markets:

• Hudson Valley (NY)
• Nantucket (MA)
  
• Poconos (PA)
  
• San Joaquin (Stockton, CA)
  
• Seacoast (coastal NH and southern ME)
• SouthCoast (New Bedford, MA)
  
• Southern Oregon (Medford/Ashland, OR)
  

Tiny tripod

Ewan's Video Recorder - Yes it is a phone
Originally uploaded by CC Chapman

Maybe I'm late to this party, but as I was perusing C.C. Chapman's SXSW 2008 photos, one in particular caught my eye: A Nokia N95 being held by a tripod.

The phone I covet has a tripod to match? Color me even greener with envy!

Here's a video that shows how easy it is to operate, and how the clamp can fit on any other tripod in your arsenal:



Or you can make your own, such as YouTube user stretch138:



(These embedded videos may not make it into the e-mail to the Ottaway Online Editors listserv when this items gets posted to the blog, so if not, click through to the blog itself.

That got me poking around the Internet some more, where I discovered that Flip Video -- which I know at least the Pocono Record is using -- sells a handy portable tripod, too.