Writing a playbook

As I alluded to during the online content call on Monday, we're in the process of crafting an audience development playbook, which like iTunes Essentials mixes, will break down both everyday and unusual content situations into three sets of steps:

1. The Basics
2. Next Steps
3. Go Deep

So, for example, today there is a story in our Cape Cod Times on public defenders still waiting for FY 2006-07 paychecks from the state. We started the day adding it to Digg/Twitter/StumbleUpon/Reddit, and if we had a midday update e-mail there (it's coming, right?) we would have made sure to include it among the highlighted items.

Next, as I pause to write this blog post, I am in the midst of reaching out to public defender blogs -- some local, some beyond -- to offer it as blog material, and make a connection with those bloggers to see if they are interested in receiving periodic notifications from us on stories they'd be interested in and how they'd like to receive those notifications.

There are other steps, too, that we hope to flush out as part of this, and once Version 1.0 of the playbook is completed, will have crafted a resource from which a training program can be developed. Our aim would be to take it on the road to our newsrooms, and as I mentioned Monday, spend some of our online editors conference in January focusing a workshop on specific situations and doing actual distribution and outreach for live stories while we're at the conference.

If you have categories of content you'd like to see included in the playbook, or any thoughts on the concept at all, please give Yoni and I a shout. We're already looking forward to the January conference, and think the practical workshop element will be a great addition to the program. We hope you agree.

Time-saving software

While teaching a photo gallery/video production session at the Cape Cod Times yesterday, I mentioned a few pieces of software I've collected in my arsenal over the years that I have found to be great time-savers for a multitude of Web production tasks. So now sharing with a broader group (and so Gene can share the list with the class participants):

• NoteTab Light
  Text editor on steroids. Has an invaluable Pasteboard feature that allows the user to collect a series of CTRL-C/copy commands in a single document for handy pasting later. Best of all, it's freeware.
• Picassa
  Picture organizer from Google. Has some basic editing features (cropping, toning, etc.), but best of all for our purpises is it's Web-page creation capabilities that will batch resize photos -- which eventually leads to a much faster upload process for Saxotech photo galleries. I'll post a how-to on the DevCenter soon. This software is also free.
  
• VideoZilla
  Video converter that can aid the encoding of Flash video for use in Saxotech sites. Got an old Quicktime or Windows Media file that you want to put into your new Saxotech-enabled video player? This program worked great for me when I tried it on some old Southcoast Safety at Sea special report videos to ready them for the new site launch. My favorite feature? It installs an option whereby in Windows Explorer you can right-click on the video and start the conversion right from your computer's file and folder view. Again, how-to coming soon. It's not freeware, but at $29.95, how can you live without it?

Note: That Southcoast link is on their staging server, so you have to be on our network to view it... when the site launches next week, the special report will be more widely availabe here.

MySpace as a viral marketing tool

As a follow-up to this week's discussion regarding MySpace and other places we need to be playing...

I noticed on my MySpace page today that my "friends" Go! in Middletown and 209 Music in Stockton added blog posts in the last couple of days to their page. Because I have added them as my friends, I see their new material on my personal dashboard:

Voila! Content distribution in MySpace.



I'm guessing that we should add a session like "How to Create a MySpace page and Ways to Use It" to yesterday's brainstorm notes from the Online Editors' conference?

One of the sessions that got cut at the last minute from this week's conference was Ken and I talking about Web 2.0 and how to leverage others' technologies for marketing and content purposes. We talked about it some (YouTube players in story pages, for example), but I'll also hang onto that as an idea for an upcoming conference call/WebEx session.

Society of News Design: New Media Quick Course — 2007

Not that anyone has a deep-seeded desire to go to Muncie, Ind., much less in the middle of winter, but if you've got folks proficient in Flash, this course could be a good way for them to take their multimedia story-telling skills to the next level.