Check out the Red Sox Twitter page. Play by play, which you can follow online, or receive each "Tweet" as a text message.
Comes courtesy of new media guru C.C. Chapman. Wouldn't you know I learned about his blog post via his Twittering.
Labels:
SMS,
social networking,
sports,
twitter
As newsrooms throughout the country prepare to cover tonight’s Republican Presidential debate on CNN, I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at some of the online coverage from Sunday’s debate.
My only caveat is to be honest with your readers about where you are and make sure you promote the coverage both online and in-print.
Labels:
blogs
What a great content idea! Talk about utility: Craigslist Treasure Hunt - Open House (washingtonian.com)
One of the things I find most frustrating about Craigslist is its completely cluttered nature. The signal to noise ratio lists quit a bit toward the noise.
More entries are here.
I, of course, would not limit the scope of content to the perusal of Craigslist. I'd include our own classifieds, and anyone else in my market that allowing ads to be posted to their site.
Labels:
classifieds
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.
OK huge caveat emptor here: A study conducted by News Corp. shows that setting up MySpace profiles can be a highly cost-efficient marketing method.
Of course the MySpace owner would say that. I'll be interested to see if minds more capable than mine challenge their math.
Even without the math to back it up, however, I'd believe it. How could word-of-mouth buzz generated in a medium -- with as substantial a mass audience as MySpace claims -- not have a positive impact for mass marketers?
Ergo, how can it not help you?
Labels:
marketing,
MySpace,
social networking
How could I forget CapeCodOnline and the coverage it carried this week of a high-profile homocide?
They received quite a spike on Monday, and their continuing coverage has sustained high traffic this week, at least relative to the previous month:
Labels:
daily uniques,
metrics,
news updates
Here's a handy popup window (finally... a popup that's handy!) in which you can plug in your domain, and keep track of what bloggers are commenting and linking to on your site.
Labels:
blogs,
social networking,
technorati,
web 2.0
Before I pay attention to my Firefox beer o'clock plugin and crack open a cold one, let me add my congratulations to all involved in the successful launch of the redesigned Seacoastonline.com this week.
The traffic tie-in here is that in addition to a successful launch, we've had relatively few traffic-related hiccups so far (knock on wood!). In fact, their audience seemed to be consuming more pages than before -- certainly relative to last month -- as they learned their way around the new site:
Labels:
metrics,
page views,
redesign
Speaking of traffic success this week, Pocono has been a nonstop hotbed of activity, especially on Wednesday. A local DJ decided to parrot the remark that got Don Imus in trouble, and in turn got himself fired.
The success was exciting from any number of angles. I was in Pocono on Wednesday, and Editor Bill Watson was spending most of his day managing the hundreds of forums posts that were streaming in all day, while the newsroom and online staff (all while I was working with a small group to answer their Saxotech and other questions and conducting the parenting guide brainstorming session... what a day for me to pick to plant myself in Stroudsburg!).
What's better is that the audience activity has continued into today, thanks to strong follow-ups yesterday and today, the latter of which included a story about Howard Stern commenting on what was happening with the DJ in Stroudsburg.
Labels:
daily uniques,
landing page,
metrics,
news updates,
UGC
On April 12th last year, the Hudson Valley crew received a nice traffic spike from their photo gallery and other coverage of the Villa Roma fire.
What to do an encore a year later? Kick off a Cutest Baby contest, of course:
When you pit the baby contest against the fire coverage, the babies are the winners:
The baby contest received 137,579 page views yesterday while the Villa Roma fire galleries received about 92,000 page views a year ago.
Labels:
contest,
metrics,
page views,
photos
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 |
Labels:
guides,
landing page,
mapping
I'm traversing the Web, looking for Camp Guide examples (the reason will become apparent soon), and in doing so I came across a nifty three-tabbed social networking teaser widget on the delawareonline home page.
Those who have heard me advocate playing in the audience's spaces will know I'm a sucker for this stuff. I wholeheartedly endorse the concept.
So far, there are 151 photos on Flickr and 34 videos on YouTube with the delawareonline tag, and they have 30 MySpace friends.
It's clearly not a mass medium for them yet, in part because it's hard to tell how often they are updating and inserting their own content. I'll be so bold as to suggest that they're not doing it enough. Looks as if the front page of the paper they use as the main photo of their MySpace profile is from early March.
At least the folks at Go! at the Times-Herald Rcord are updating their cover photo and blog weekly (1,641 MySpace friends and counting). Ian Hill, a.k.a. 209 Music, has been caring and feeding his MySpace profile since 2005 and has 1,845 friends to show for it (music is a natural fit on MySpace, by the way... if you have a music critic on staff and he or she is not on MySpace, shame on that critic).
You get out of these efforts what you put into it, and as the old lottery adage goes, "You can't win if you don't play."
Anyone using Flickr or YouTube, either to post your own content or network with others?
Labels:
content distribution,
delawareonline,
Flickr,
MySpace,
social networking,
YouTube
While I am singing the praises o' Pocono, check out their St. Patrick's Day landing page. In particular, try out the quiz, teased from the top of the right rail.
Something that will make Kurt and his staff's hearts melt: Marta tells me that a day after launch, the ad positions for the page were sold out.
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.
Labels:
guides,
landing page,
mapping,
UGC
Editors, we have a winner in the wi-fi map contest:
http://thrnewmedia.com/maps/wifi2.html
Erik Gliedman actually sent me three e-mails yesterday, updating me on his progress. He met all of the requirements, and went the extra mile by eschewing his co-worker's app in favor of his own map coding.
For his efforts, he has won the promised handheld video camera. Share with your colleagues, Erik, but nice going! Please share a product review of the camera when you get a chance.
Stay tuned for the next challenge....
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.
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:
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):
Half loaves of bread - Slashfood: Certainly you would have to file this product under "Jobs To Be Done."
