Wikipedia contest

Ottaway Online Directors and Editors,

 

I am happy to announce a new installment of our audience development contest, this time focused on a specific content distribution idea: How many pages can you wiki?

 

I've mentioned before that opportunity exists with every landing page created -- not to mention listing our sites as geographic resources for the towns and regions we cover -- to sprinkle our links across the wikisphere. So let's focus some effort on doing so, and gain some traffic and an education in the process.

 

Here's a couple of examples where I have added our newspaper.com sites or specific landing pages to the External Links or Resources sections of Wikipedia entries:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantucket%2C_Massachusetts#External_links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Bedford%2C_Massachusetts#External_links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampanoag_%28tribe%29#External_links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_primary#Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Isaak#External_links

 

Now, I happen to have a login, and you can set yourself up with one too. It will make it much easier to track your progress, because there is a link once you log in that takes you to "My Contributions," listing everything you've added throughout Wikipedia. If you decide to remain anonymous, you will just have to keep track of your entries manually.

 

Note: In the case of the Nantucket entry, where I had also originally added links to a few other Nantucket products, Wikipedia editors saw that as link spam and removed all but one. So I would recommend only a single external link to your your products for each wiki page.

 

And the best part about this contest? Mere participation makes you a winner. Here's how you can earn the prizes:

 

Add resource links to 25 Wikipedia pages, and I'll furnish you a copy of The Wisdom of Crowds.

Add links to 50 Wikipedia pages, and I'll throw in a $25 gift card to the coffee shop of your choice.

Add links to 75 Wikipedia pages, and you'll receive an Ottaway-logoed shirt, commemorating the our 70th anniversary.

 

(75? Am I nuts? Well at 5 a day for the next 16 business days, that'd be 80. Seems pretty doable when I put it that way, doesn't it?)

 

Deadline is 8 p.m. ET, Aug. 31. Grand prize winner will be the online editor that added links to the most Wikipedia pages: A pair of Olympus ME-15 lavalier mics. I know Seacoast needs them for their resuscitated Webcast. I'm sure everyone else can find a use for them too.

 

Fire away with any questions! And good luck!

 

-Sean

 

How Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Treat the No Follow Link Attribute

In our conversation on today's Online Editors' call about content distribution, whether or not to link landing pages from Wikipedia was raised. I'm a firm believer that we should, but there's lots of debate about the efficacy of the practice out there in the search engine circles (if you think journalists like to debate, you should read some search engine blogs...).

As I was putting the finishing touches on the Wikipedia training doc that I am about to distribute and post on the DevCenter, I came across a blog post from yesterday that ties into our conversation quite nicely: How Google, Yahoo & Ask.com Treat the No Follow Link Attribute

Executive summary: Wikipedia's applies the "nofollow" attribute to links to external Web sites. Google honors that attribute (though they "hope and expect" Wikipedia and others to phase out use of that attribute). Yahoo and Ask do not honor the attirbute, and index the linked content.

As Meatloaf once sang, two out of three ain't bad. Makes adding links to Wikipedia worth the effort in my book.

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.

Wikipedia

Jay Small's blog post today regarding brands and Wikipedia -- and he was riffing on a post by Steve Rubel -- got me wondering: How many of our brands are represented on Wikipedia? Is the information accurate?

 

Check out the Pocono Record entry. Scroll down a bit... Holy loads of detail, Batman! The Cape Cod Times, on the other hand, has a sparse entry -- and 2004 circulation numbers. The entry about New Bedford is sparser still.

 

Piggy back that to a conversation that I had with Patrick Mullen last week: When we create geographic or topic-specific landing pages, should we add ourselves as related links in Wikipedia?

 

Rhetorical question, of course. That should be part of the landing page creation workflow, and we should make that #19 on the list of 9 Ways for Newspapers to Improve Their Websites... I say 19 because Todd Zeigler added to his list based on reader feedback.

 

I just added three external links to the Wikipedia entry for Nantucket. Took me eight minutes, and only took that long because it was my first time poking around under the hood. Won't take most more than a minute or two to add a landing page link to the Wikipedia entry or entries that make the most contextual sense. Meanwhile, I'll let you know how the Wikipedia referrals to the Nantucket sites go.