By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
The Denver Post experienced two facelifts late last year: to its brick-and-mortar home downtown and to its virtual home on the World Wide Web.
The flagship paper of MediaNews Group Inc. is now sharing a roof with its joint operating agreement rival, the (Denver) Rocky Mountain News, after moving into the newly constructed Denver Newspaper Agency headquarters. The $90 million building, just down the street from the Colorado State Capitol, was formally dedicated last month.
The Post’s redesigned Web site, meantime, kicked off in October. Like The Post’s new building, the site is now cleaner and boasts new features, including those aimed at keeping people from “stubbing,” or leaving quickly after reading only one article.
“What we want to do is have a person find the article that they like and keep them on the site longer by presenting them with other useful features,” said Mark Cardwell, The Post’s managing editor for new media and strategic development. “This will keep them coming back more frequently.”
Bigger screens
The new denverpost.com was also designed to take advantage of wider, higher-resolution computer monitors.
“We can put more features on wider pages, which means we can present more articles,” said Cardwell, an electronic news veteran who joined The Post last year to oversee its online efforts.
“Hopefully, we can keep people more engaged and give them more places to go.”
The Denver Post’s redesign (bottom image) takes advantage of wider, higher-resolution computer monitors and introduces such features as tabbed sections, not found in the older version of www.denverpost.com.
As part of the redesign, performed in conjunction with Denver-based Indigio Group Inc., The Post migrated to tab-based navigation. When a user scrolls over a specific tab, additional sub-categories for the section become available.
Indigio and Post designers also moved several key features, such as subscription customer service, access to the paper’s PDF electronic version and RSS support, to the top of the page to make them more accessible.
Graphically, denverpost.com now sports a prominent photo of the day on the upper-left side of the page, as does each news section.
The Post has seven employees dedicated to its online staff, six of which are in editorial, but the site has additional support through MediaNews’ corporate IT department.
“They handle our servers and uptime and system administration,” Cardwell said of the 60-member group, which oversees approximately 75 MediaNews Web sites.
The Post last redesigned its Web site in August 2004 (see Newspapers & Technology, September 2004).
Attracting readers
While the retooled denverpost.com includes significant adjustments in the layout of content, the new look is just a part of MediaNews’ overall goal to attract readers to the site for more than just news stories.
“We will make money in search, by offering readers search functions,” William Dean Singleton, Post publisher and chairman, said at a January 2006 forum discussing his philosophy on Web revenues.
To that end, The Post is working to bolster its search features so that readers can find more on denverpost.com, Cardwell said. Users can now search through the paper’s display ads and the paper will upgrade its employment ads once its Yahoo HotJobs co-branded venture goes live this spring (see related story, page 1).
“Search is becoming a way for people to navigate the Web,” Cardwell said. “We have to continually improve our search just like Google (does) and we’re doing that in a number of different ways.”
For example, if a user were to type “furniture” in the search bar, denverpost.com not only displays furniture-related news and blogs on the left column, but print ads on the right in a bid to link marketers’ messages to perspective customers.
As for its employment ads, the Yahoo link will elevate the role HotJobs plays at the paper, Cardwell said.
“We have sort of a hidden technology where HotJobs is powering a big portion of our employment section right now,” he said. “We’re going to be using HotJobs across all of MediaNews Group and it will get a higher profile.”
In the long run, The Post and other consortium Web sites will also add other Yahoo features.
Breaking news on Web before print
The redesign of denverpost.com also bought with it a change in philosophy in how The Post covers news. Where the paper formerly held breaking news exclusively for its print issue, it now posts news as it happens, even if it means its archrival Rocky Mountain News will have access to an important story.
Case in point, Cardwell said, was how the paper posted a story about the killing of a trial witness.
“It’ll be in the paper tomorrow, but we had it written and posted on the site at 8:30 a.m.” he said. “We beat TV and radio and maintained our place as the primary source of news in Colorado.”
Cardwell said site traffic has increased since the new design was launched, but declined to release numbers because results were skewed by the fact that November was an election month.
“We’re up from November 2005, but I’m not sure how meaningful that is” because of election traffic, he said.
Web site Snapshot
Statistics Snapshot
www.DenverPost.com
Launched: 1995
Last major redesign: August 2004
New Web site launch: October 2006
Selected awards:
*1998 Colorado Press Association: Colorado’s Best Online Daily Newspaper.
*2000 Digital Edge Awards: Public Service Award, circulation more than 250,000.
*2006 Colorado Press Association: Best breaking news site in Colorado.
Audience metrics & analysis: Omniture
Metrics: (per month)
Total unique audience: 731,245
Total page views: 8,343,071
Visitors HHI $25,000 to $49,999: 147,902
Visitors HHI $50,000 to $99,999: 352,423
Visitors HHI $100,000+: 183,906
Unique visitors: 731,245
Active reach %: 0.52
Web page views: 8,343,071
Web pages per visitor: 11
Visits per visitor: 2.60
Time per visitor: 00: 10: 41 (hh:mm:ss)
Source Nielsen//NetRatings
Panel: Combined Home and Work
Period: July 2006
Source: NAA NAdbase
Monday, January 1, 2007
S.D. daily taps Saxotech for Web publishing
The Aberdeen (S.D.) American News tapped Saxotech for its Saxotech Online Web publishing software in a move to improve online user experience, sell content online and improve the flow of content from its editorial app to the Web, Saxotech said. The Web publishing software will integrate with all of the newspaper’s existing software.
“We’re excited by the opportunities that the Saxotech Online solution provides us,” said Jerome Ferson, president and publisher of the American News.
Saxotech’s recent integration of Omniture SiteCatalyst will allow American News to access the Web analytics tool to provide real-time interactive reporting, Saxotech said.
“We’re excited by the opportunities that the Saxotech Online solution provides us,” said Jerome Ferson, president and publisher of the American News.
Saxotech’s recent integration of Omniture SiteCatalyst will allow American News to access the Web analytics tool to provide real-time interactive reporting, Saxotech said.
Reuters to offer Pluck’s blog syndication
Reuters said it will offer Pluck Corp.’s BlogBurst blog syndication service to thousands of its media partners worldwide.
BlogBurst is a blog syndication network that provides content to several newspapers including the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and Austin (Texas) American-Statesman.
BlogBurst content will be available to Reuters’ media clients in the coming weeks, Reuters said.
Reuters Media President Chris Ahearn said its partnership with Pluck is a part of the media company’s strategy to embrace new digital platforms, including user-generated and moderated content.
“With Pluck, we will help our worldwide media partners offer their readers smart and fast access to the best in the blogosphere,” he said in a statement.
As part of the deal, Reuters made an undisclosed investment in privately held Pluck.
BlogBurst is a blog syndication network that provides content to several newspapers including the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and Austin (Texas) American-Statesman.
BlogBurst content will be available to Reuters’ media clients in the coming weeks, Reuters said.
Reuters Media President Chris Ahearn said its partnership with Pluck is a part of the media company’s strategy to embrace new digital platforms, including user-generated and moderated content.
“With Pluck, we will help our worldwide media partners offer their readers smart and fast access to the best in the blogosphere,” he said in a statement.
As part of the deal, Reuters made an undisclosed investment in privately held Pluck.
OC Register signs on with iMedia
The Orange County (Calif.) Register in Santa Ana, Calif., in November began distributing iMedia International Inc.’s monthly Hollywood Previews Entertainment magazine and multimedia CD-ROM.
The entertainment magazine cover is branded The Orange County Register Hollywood Previews Magazine and is inserted into the paper the last Sunday of the month.
The multimedia product includes movie trailers, behind-the-scenes interviews with actors and filmmakers, and additional content on the latest television shows, music videos and video games.
Other iMedia newspaper customers are the (New York) Daily News and the Dallas Morning News.
The entertainment magazine cover is branded The Orange County Register Hollywood Previews Magazine and is inserted into the paper the last Sunday of the month.
The multimedia product includes movie trailers, behind-the-scenes interviews with actors and filmmakers, and additional content on the latest television shows, music videos and video games.
Other iMedia newspaper customers are the (New York) Daily News and the Dallas Morning News.
Reader beta released
The New York Times released a beta version of its Times Reader app.
Times Reader is a downloadable app that enables readers to read The Times electronically, online or offline, through multiple devices such as desktops and tablet PCs.
The software permits sophisticated navigation and, through a synching component, enables users to retrieve updated news and information dynamically.
Times Reader beta for Windows XP requires Microsoft’s .Net Framework 3.0, and is free until the service is officially launched in 2007.
Times Reader is a downloadable app that enables readers to read The Times electronically, online or offline, through multiple devices such as desktops and tablet PCs.
The software permits sophisticated navigation and, through a synching component, enables users to retrieve updated news and information dynamically.
Times Reader beta for Windows XP requires Microsoft’s .Net Framework 3.0, and is free until the service is officially launched in 2007.
(New York) Daily News taps Quigo’s AdSonar
The (New York) Daily News said it would beef up its online advertising capabilities by rolling out Quigo’s AdSonar pay-per-click contextual advertising software.
AdSonar will let the paper launch its own auction-based pay-per-click advertising program using content-targeted sponsored links, the firm said.
“Being part of Quigo’s extensive network of other local, regional and national sites will allow us to benefit from many other advertisers seeking to target the greater New York metropolitan area,” said Jon Beck, director of online sales and business development at the Daily News.
Quigo has installed AdSonar at 150 local, regional and national newspaper sites including the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Cox Newspapers, Hearst Co., McClatchy Co., Media General and Morris Communications.
AdSonar will let the paper launch its own auction-based pay-per-click advertising program using content-targeted sponsored links, the firm said.
“Being part of Quigo’s extensive network of other local, regional and national sites will allow us to benefit from many other advertisers seeking to target the greater New York metropolitan area,” said Jon Beck, director of online sales and business development at the Daily News.
Quigo has installed AdSonar at 150 local, regional and national newspaper sites including the Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Cox Newspapers, Hearst Co., McClatchy Co., Media General and Morris Communications.
Monster signs Freedom, NJMG
Monster inked partnerships with Freedom Communications Inc., North Jersey Media Group, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Times-Leader as the online job site gains traction in the newspaper industry.
Freedom later this month will launch co-branded employment sites at The Orange County (Calif.) Register, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz. Remaining Freedom papers and television Web sites will roll out the service by April.
NJMG, the Times-Leader and the Star-Bulletin will have their sites in production early this year.
Freedom later this month will launch co-branded employment sites at The Orange County (Calif.) Register, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Ariz. Remaining Freedom papers and television Web sites will roll out the service by April.
NJMG, the Times-Leader and the Star-Bulletin will have their sites in production early this year.
Ft. Myers uses its mojo to power neighborhood microsites
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., is seeing positive results from a new approach to increase neighborhood coverage and online readership.
The Gannett Inc. Co.-owned newspaper (daily, 78,673; Sunday, 93,711) kicked off its mobile journalism or “mojo,” program in late 2005 after hearing from readers that they wanted more local coverage.
In response, The News-Press assigned reporters, armed with laptops, digital cameras and digital voice recorders to specific neighborhoods, from which they immediately post stories to the paper’s Web site as events dictate.
“People have always had an appetite for more local news and we wanted to get reporters out into the neighborhoods to do a deeper level of local coverage,” said Kate Marymont, executive editor and vice president of news at The News-Press. “We don’t have the space in a daily newspaper to cover the kind of detail that readers really want, so we thought let’s experiment with doing these neighborhood sites on our Web site and see if we can do it that way.”
Traffic soaring
Since launching the program, The News-Press has seen Web traffic grow, particularly from the nine neighborhood microsites, Marymont said.
“We have strong growth on our overall Web site, but these microsites are growing at three times the rate of our overall Web site,” Marymont said.
The paper has also been able to attract advertising onto each particular microsite.
“We have developed an advertising program that lets advertisers specifically market on these microsites so that they can target specific readers,” she said.
The News-Press has four dedicated mojo journalists and nine other reporters, from its weekly publication, that cover the neighborhood microsites.
Marymont said equipping a mojo varies from $1,000 to as much as $6,000, depending on the sophistication of the kit. The reporters are equipped with laptops, digital MP3 voice recorders and digital cameras and can transmit their stories and photos through a wireless connection from the field, using Saxotech Online software.
“The reporters who write for our Cape Coral weekly used to work all week long and produce a product used once a week,” Marymont said. “Now, as they get information, they put it online so that the Cape (Coral) microsite is getting populated with content every day and people can go and find out what’s happening in their neighborhood” as it happens.
Some of the news is important only to a specific neighborhood, such as traffic tie-ups and road closures.
“They’ll put a couple of paragraphs up when (a road) is opened up again,” information that is useful to readers, Marymont said.
Photos part of the mix
On some occasions, the mojos might post as many a dozen updates a day. And while news coverage is important, the microsites also focus on photo galleries.
“We also try to have a lot of photo galleries from the communities because people like to see what’s happening,” she said.
In addition to traffic news, some of the more popular stories on the sites include articles and pictures about new businesses and other economic updates.
Marymont said other newspapers looking to enhance their own neighborhood coverage have approached The News-Press about the mojo program.
“I have spoken to several national groups about mojos and have had several editors from other newspapers come here to observe the program,” Marymont said, adding that The News-Press will expand the program throughout 2007.
“By the end of 2007, all of our reporters and photographers will be converted to a mojo workflow,” she said. “It is unclear whether we will be expanding personnel but we will surely spread mojos and add microsites to new areas while trading off some other things that are lesser growth opportunities.”
Associate Editor
The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla., is seeing positive results from a new approach to increase neighborhood coverage and online readership.
The Gannett Inc. Co.-owned newspaper (daily, 78,673; Sunday, 93,711) kicked off its mobile journalism or “mojo,” program in late 2005 after hearing from readers that they wanted more local coverage.
In response, The News-Press assigned reporters, armed with laptops, digital cameras and digital voice recorders to specific neighborhoods, from which they immediately post stories to the paper’s Web site as events dictate.
“People have always had an appetite for more local news and we wanted to get reporters out into the neighborhoods to do a deeper level of local coverage,” said Kate Marymont, executive editor and vice president of news at The News-Press. “We don’t have the space in a daily newspaper to cover the kind of detail that readers really want, so we thought let’s experiment with doing these neighborhood sites on our Web site and see if we can do it that way.”
Traffic soaring
Since launching the program, The News-Press has seen Web traffic grow, particularly from the nine neighborhood microsites, Marymont said.
“We have strong growth on our overall Web site, but these microsites are growing at three times the rate of our overall Web site,” Marymont said.
The paper has also been able to attract advertising onto each particular microsite.
“We have developed an advertising program that lets advertisers specifically market on these microsites so that they can target specific readers,” she said.
The News-Press has four dedicated mojo journalists and nine other reporters, from its weekly publication, that cover the neighborhood microsites.
Marymont said equipping a mojo varies from $1,000 to as much as $6,000, depending on the sophistication of the kit. The reporters are equipped with laptops, digital MP3 voice recorders and digital cameras and can transmit their stories and photos through a wireless connection from the field, using Saxotech Online software.
“The reporters who write for our Cape Coral weekly used to work all week long and produce a product used once a week,” Marymont said. “Now, as they get information, they put it online so that the Cape (Coral) microsite is getting populated with content every day and people can go and find out what’s happening in their neighborhood” as it happens.
Some of the news is important only to a specific neighborhood, such as traffic tie-ups and road closures.
“They’ll put a couple of paragraphs up when (a road) is opened up again,” information that is useful to readers, Marymont said.
Photos part of the mix
On some occasions, the mojos might post as many a dozen updates a day. And while news coverage is important, the microsites also focus on photo galleries.
“We also try to have a lot of photo galleries from the communities because people like to see what’s happening,” she said.
In addition to traffic news, some of the more popular stories on the sites include articles and pictures about new businesses and other economic updates.
Marymont said other newspapers looking to enhance their own neighborhood coverage have approached The News-Press about the mojo program.
“I have spoken to several national groups about mojos and have had several editors from other newspapers come here to observe the program,” Marymont said, adding that The News-Press will expand the program throughout 2007.
“By the end of 2007, all of our reporters and photographers will be converted to a mojo workflow,” she said. “It is unclear whether we will be expanding personnel but we will surely spread mojos and add microsites to new areas while trading off some other things that are lesser growth opportunities.”
Cox to roll out database building software throughout 17 daily papers
Cox Newspapers Inc. will deploy Caspio Inc.’s database building software across its 17 daily papers.
The move comes after a two-year evaluation of the software at flagship Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
All of Cox Newspapers’ editorial teams now have access to the Caspio Bridge service to publish their various databases. Caspio Bridge’s multi-user administrative interface can manage access privileges so that each paper only views its own data and applications.
“Our entire newspaper group has been monitoring the success of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in creating interactive Web database applications with Caspio Bridge,” said Sue Cleere, special projects manager at CoxNet, the strategic and operational online group for Cox Newspapers’ shared print and online activities.
The Journal-Constitution has been using Caspio Bridge to publish databases on the Web and create Web database applications. Other papers to roll out the app include the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, Dayton (Ohio) Daily News and Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.
Caspio’s Director of Marketing Valaine Anderson said that the ajc.com Web site often requires at least two distinct Web database applications per month, some at a moment’s notice.
“One example was during Hurricane Katrina when ajc.com, within 20 minutes, posted an application to help people find loved ones,” she said.
Anderson said newspaper customers most commonly use the database applications for publishing and managing local community information.
“An online editor can import data into Caspio Bridge and use its wizards to create a Web application interface for displaying, sorting and searching the data online,” she said.
Some examples of its use include sports scores, election results, school test scores and housing statistics.
While financial terms for the deal were not announced, Caspio said the fees for using the Caspio Bridge service are based on the number of database applications. Fees start at $40 per month for up to five Web applications and scale up appropriately.
The move comes after a two-year evaluation of the software at flagship Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
All of Cox Newspapers’ editorial teams now have access to the Caspio Bridge service to publish their various databases. Caspio Bridge’s multi-user administrative interface can manage access privileges so that each paper only views its own data and applications.
“Our entire newspaper group has been monitoring the success of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in creating interactive Web database applications with Caspio Bridge,” said Sue Cleere, special projects manager at CoxNet, the strategic and operational online group for Cox Newspapers’ shared print and online activities.
The Journal-Constitution has been using Caspio Bridge to publish databases on the Web and create Web database applications. Other papers to roll out the app include the Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, Dayton (Ohio) Daily News and Palm Beach (Fla.) Post.
Caspio’s Director of Marketing Valaine Anderson said that the ajc.com Web site often requires at least two distinct Web database applications per month, some at a moment’s notice.
“One example was during Hurricane Katrina when ajc.com, within 20 minutes, posted an application to help people find loved ones,” she said.
Anderson said newspaper customers most commonly use the database applications for publishing and managing local community information.
“An online editor can import data into Caspio Bridge and use its wizards to create a Web application interface for displaying, sorting and searching the data online,” she said.
Some examples of its use include sports scores, election results, school test scores and housing statistics.
While financial terms for the deal were not announced, Caspio said the fees for using the Caspio Bridge service are based on the number of database applications. Fees start at $40 per month for up to five Web applications and scale up appropriately.
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