The Dallas Morning News last month rolled out civic journalism site neighborsgo.com, becoming the latest paper to embrace community journalism.
The site, covering 55 communities in the Dallas area, is powered by software developed by Small World Labs, an Austin, Texas, company.
The Web site is designed to mimic MySpace. Users can choose to navigate through different communities and connect with others through blogs, forums and other options.
Users can share and broadcast stories and photos pertaining to their neighborhoods and interests.
The Morning News reported that in the first two weeks of operation, the site attracted some 1,200 registered users.
A printed edition appearing every Saturday in The Morning News will complement neighborsgo.
Wikis and blogs
The online world includes a number of ways for users to get the word out and newspapers have begun to adapt and offer several features on their sites to get their readers involved.
Software companies like MindTouch Inc. are popularizing the wiki-module approach on the World Wide Web. The San Diego-based company offers a number of different wiki-development services.
MindTouch Chief Executive Officer Ken Liu said there is a difference between blogs, forums and wikis.
“The big difference is that blogs are for anybody to come in and express something that is time- or event-based, a quick impression, like the Virginia Tech shootings,” he said. “A wiki is much more in-depth, you are producing an article and depending on how passionate you are, you can provide encyclopedic knowledge on the subject you ware writing.”
A wiki is also a collaborative effort among different users providing content on a particular subject, or in The San Diego Union-Tribune’s case, the San Diego music scene. A blog, on the other hand, is written and posted online by a single user stirring the pot on a particular topic.
“When someone posts a blog they can just rant anonymously,” Liu said. “But when somebody goes to a wiki, then their mindset is more in-depth and they can write more deeply about the subject matter.”
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