By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
Even as newspapers continue to explore the value of rolling out grassroots-oriented Web sites and special sections, one of the first publishers to pioneer citizen journalism has quietly halted syndicating the concept to other publications.
Elaine Zinngrabe, Denver Newspaper Agency’s senior vice president, interactive, said that while DNA is no longer actively marketing YourHub, newspapers can still license the service.
DNA two years ago began syndicating YourHub.com after receiving inquiries from other newspapers interested in the concept (see Newspapers & Technology, April 2006).
The syndication kit included content publishing and hosting software as well as strategies for marketing, editorial and sales.
DNA charged newspapers a one-time setup fee of between $2,000 and $10,000 and a recurring monthly license fee of between $250 and $5,000, depending upon market size.
Still available
YourHub, a combination of Web sites and weekly printed publications, made its debut in Denver in 2005. The concept, produced by the Rocky Mountain News, is promoted and printed by the DNA, which also publishes The Denver Post.
Currently, the Denver YourHub encompasses 47 Web sites and 18 print editions.
Outside of The Buffalo (N.Y.) News and The Gazette in Colorado Springs, Colo., however, the newspapers that syndicated YourHub were either MediaNews Group Inc. or E.W. Scripps-owned properties, reflecting the publishers that share ownership of DNA. They included the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, Treasure Coast Newspapers in Florida and the Wichita Falls (Texas) Times Record News.
But The Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel, a Scripps paper that was an early adopter, recently discontinued YourHub, said Jack Lail, managing editor of multimedia.
Changing strategy
“Our strategy has changed. Instead of doing three geo-targeted print publications, we now do one in our home county,” he said. “A separate publication we own is doing community zoning.”
Lail said The News-Sentinel is continuing to offer opportunities for users to contribute content through four different sites, aimed at prep sports, college sports, education issues and for the nearby Smoky Mountains. The sites were created on Ning.com, a free social networking site.
Lail said that some user-generated features can also be supported in the Ellington CMS platform the newspaper uses for its Knoxnews.com Web site (see related story above).
The paper is also exploring other options to allow users to post additional photos and text.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
MediaNews adding health info to Web
MediaNews Group is rolling out health information and associated social networking features across its Web sites as the publisher adds more specific user content.
The publisher tapped San Francisco-based TauMed Inc. to underpin the service.
TauMed’s medical, health and lifestyle information will be added to all of MNG’s newspapers’ and regional portals’ Web sites. Users as well as healthcare professionals generate content.
Three Connecticut papers — the (Bridgeport) Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time and the Advocate in Stamford — and the Chico (Calif.) Enterprise Record were the first four MNG dailies to add the TauMed content to their Web sites.
The sites boast TauMed’s health channel, which includes social networking tools, user-generated content and video, said Tauseef Bashir, TauMed’s president and chief executive officer.
TauMed will host, manage and distribute all of the user-generated content.
Bashir said TauMed’s social networking features allow users to create personalized “My Health Space” portfolios that contain content unique to their experiences.
“People have the option of creating a personalized health space so a registered user can keep track of different subscriptions and information and interact and connect with other online community members,” he said.
The publisher tapped San Francisco-based TauMed Inc. to underpin the service.
TauMed’s medical, health and lifestyle information will be added to all of MNG’s newspapers’ and regional portals’ Web sites. Users as well as healthcare professionals generate content.
Three Connecticut papers — the (Bridgeport) Connecticut Post, Greenwich Time and the Advocate in Stamford — and the Chico (Calif.) Enterprise Record were the first four MNG dailies to add the TauMed content to their Web sites.
The sites boast TauMed’s health channel, which includes social networking tools, user-generated content and video, said Tauseef Bashir, TauMed’s president and chief executive officer.
TauMed will host, manage and distribute all of the user-generated content.
Bashir said TauMed’s social networking features allow users to create personalized “My Health Space” portfolios that contain content unique to their experiences.
“People have the option of creating a personalized health space so a registered user can keep track of different subscriptions and information and interact and connect with other online community members,” he said.
Star-Ledger is putting its newsroom staff through an intense training program to pump up the volume of video.
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., is ready to kick up its video news coverage, thanks to an intensive training program geared toward changing the way it covers news in the Garden state.
Last month the newspaper (Monday-Friday, 345,130; Saturday, 281,901; Sunday, 500,382) put 20 newsroom staff through an intensive five-day video training boot camp, covering topics such as how to shoot and produce video.
The additional training, conducted by New York-based Rosenblum Associates, is part of an effort by the Newhouse paper to feed more video content to its Web site, said John Hassell, deputy managing editor at the daily.
“The initial boot camp we are doing with Rosenblum Associates is the first step toward two things,” he said. “First is getting video training spread more broadly across the staff and second is putting together a noontime webcast that we hope will be something new and different for newspapers.”
The Star-Ledger, with 300 editorial staff members, hopes to provide video training to everyone who needs or wants it, Hassell said.
Boot camp members had their schedules arranged so that they would spend five straight days telling stories only through video. The boot camp also introduced the staff to new techniques they could use to cover news stories.
The class teaches students how to bridge the gap between gathering news intended for both video and print distribution, Hassell said.
“What a lot of people do is when they first get a video camera and are sent out to shoot video they come back with a lot of video and that creates an inefficient post-production result because you get back and have three hours of footage that you have to watch and edit,” said Hassell.
“We are teaching people how to think about what they need to shoot for the story they want to tell so that the process of producing video stories” becomes more efficient.
The concept mirrors how a reporter and photographer traditionally prepare to cover a story. Each knows what he must do to gather the information he needs, Hassell said.
Multimedia kits
The Star-Ledger made a “significant” financial commitment in buying the equipment to outfit the first class of 20, Hassell said.
Each received a video kit that includes a Sony HVR-A1U digital camera and an Apple MacBook Pro laptop with Final Cut Pro editing software. Other accessories include a Sennheiser Evolution G2 100 series wireless lavalier microphone to capture high-quality audio.
The Star-Ledger is still planning its five-minute nooncast video program. It’s building a set in the newsroom and is in the midst of purchasing the mixing board and other production equipment needed to support the show, Hassell said.
“We still have a lot of work to do to figure out exactly what it looks like, the content and tone of the program,” he said. “The idea is to do a short five-minute nooncast that is combination of live and taped footage.”
Hassell said the daily believes the five-minute length of the show is the correct format, citing current trends favoring shorter videos.
“The evidence I see suggests that’s about as long as you are going to get somebody’s attention, except for the most extraordinary videos,” he said. “We are operating on the assumption that shorter is better and we have to be able to tell a story in two minutes.”
The Star-Ledger didn’t have a shortage of volunteers when asked for people to participate in the training session.
“We let everybody know there were 20 slots available for this boot camp, and we received 105 volunteers, “ he said.
Of the 105 candidates, 65 submitted three-minute video audition tapes. Rosenblum Associates then helped the paper whittle the remaining list down to the final 20.
“There is no shortage of interest. That’s true not just of video but of almost everything we do on the digital side,” Hassell said. “We trained the entire staff in blogging and we have reporters calling in audio clips from the field on breaking news.”
Mastering videography is one step in several that traditional newsrooms have to take in order to learn how to cover news in a multimedia environment, Hassell said.
“For us video is the next frontier in that evolution, but it’s important to make sure that everybody in our newsroom understands how video can best be used to deliver news content,” he said. “I think we should agree that we have to be platform-agnostic, but if a story is best told in video, great.”
News&Tech interviews guests from The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. about their recent intensive video training to pump up the volume of video at nj.com. Guests include John Hassell, deputy managing editor; Sharon Russell, assistant managing editor for video; and Seth Siditsky, video enterprise editor.
Making the video push
As newspapers continue to push into the online video marketplace, they need to overcome the psychological roadblocks inherent in adapting to a new medium.
That’s what video and journalism consultant Michael Rosenblum said about newspapers attempting to become more video-active as they migrate to the Web.
“It’s incumbent upon these organizations to incorporate video as part of their whole package they have to deliver or they are going to look a bit remiss,” he said. “Luckily, the cameras are now cheap and simple enough to use so that making the transition to video is a relatively simple thing to do.”
Last month, New York-based Rosenblum Associates worked with The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., to develop a program to train 20 newsroom staff as videographers.
Rosenblum fashioned the Star-Ledger’s video boot camp after one he conducted for the BBC and other broadcasters.
“The training is straightforward,” he said. “We take a group of 20-25 people and we put them through an intensive boot camp where we isolate them from everybody else and force them to work only in video,” Rosenblum said. “We take away all text and all writing and go out and shoot pieces, critique them, take them apart and put them back together.”
Rosenblum said he is interested in creating a new generation of digital journalists that use video as a component to their reporting.
“Television itself is for television, but when you take video to the Web, it’s non-linear, on-demand and people watch it in a much more fragmented way,” he said.
Associate Editor
The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., is ready to kick up its video news coverage, thanks to an intensive training program geared toward changing the way it covers news in the Garden state.
Last month the newspaper (Monday-Friday, 345,130; Saturday, 281,901; Sunday, 500,382) put 20 newsroom staff through an intensive five-day video training boot camp, covering topics such as how to shoot and produce video.
The additional training, conducted by New York-based Rosenblum Associates, is part of an effort by the Newhouse paper to feed more video content to its Web site, said John Hassell, deputy managing editor at the daily.
“The initial boot camp we are doing with Rosenblum Associates is the first step toward two things,” he said. “First is getting video training spread more broadly across the staff and second is putting together a noontime webcast that we hope will be something new and different for newspapers.”
The Star-Ledger, with 300 editorial staff members, hopes to provide video training to everyone who needs or wants it, Hassell said.
Boot camp members had their schedules arranged so that they would spend five straight days telling stories only through video. The boot camp also introduced the staff to new techniques they could use to cover news stories.
The class teaches students how to bridge the gap between gathering news intended for both video and print distribution, Hassell said.
“What a lot of people do is when they first get a video camera and are sent out to shoot video they come back with a lot of video and that creates an inefficient post-production result because you get back and have three hours of footage that you have to watch and edit,” said Hassell.
“We are teaching people how to think about what they need to shoot for the story they want to tell so that the process of producing video stories” becomes more efficient.
The concept mirrors how a reporter and photographer traditionally prepare to cover a story. Each knows what he must do to gather the information he needs, Hassell said.
Multimedia kits
The Star-Ledger made a “significant” financial commitment in buying the equipment to outfit the first class of 20, Hassell said.
Each received a video kit that includes a Sony HVR-A1U digital camera and an Apple MacBook Pro laptop with Final Cut Pro editing software. Other accessories include a Sennheiser Evolution G2 100 series wireless lavalier microphone to capture high-quality audio.
The Star-Ledger is still planning its five-minute nooncast video program. It’s building a set in the newsroom and is in the midst of purchasing the mixing board and other production equipment needed to support the show, Hassell said.
“We still have a lot of work to do to figure out exactly what it looks like, the content and tone of the program,” he said. “The idea is to do a short five-minute nooncast that is combination of live and taped footage.”
Hassell said the daily believes the five-minute length of the show is the correct format, citing current trends favoring shorter videos.
“The evidence I see suggests that’s about as long as you are going to get somebody’s attention, except for the most extraordinary videos,” he said. “We are operating on the assumption that shorter is better and we have to be able to tell a story in two minutes.”
The Star-Ledger didn’t have a shortage of volunteers when asked for people to participate in the training session.
“We let everybody know there were 20 slots available for this boot camp, and we received 105 volunteers, “ he said.
Of the 105 candidates, 65 submitted three-minute video audition tapes. Rosenblum Associates then helped the paper whittle the remaining list down to the final 20.
“There is no shortage of interest. That’s true not just of video but of almost everything we do on the digital side,” Hassell said. “We trained the entire staff in blogging and we have reporters calling in audio clips from the field on breaking news.”
Mastering videography is one step in several that traditional newsrooms have to take in order to learn how to cover news in a multimedia environment, Hassell said.
“For us video is the next frontier in that evolution, but it’s important to make sure that everybody in our newsroom understands how video can best be used to deliver news content,” he said. “I think we should agree that we have to be platform-agnostic, but if a story is best told in video, great.”
News&Tech interviews guests from The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. about their recent intensive video training to pump up the volume of video at nj.com. Guests include John Hassell, deputy managing editor; Sharon Russell, assistant managing editor for video; and Seth Siditsky, video enterprise editor.
Making the video push
As newspapers continue to push into the online video marketplace, they need to overcome the psychological roadblocks inherent in adapting to a new medium.
That’s what video and journalism consultant Michael Rosenblum said about newspapers attempting to become more video-active as they migrate to the Web.
“It’s incumbent upon these organizations to incorporate video as part of their whole package they have to deliver or they are going to look a bit remiss,” he said. “Luckily, the cameras are now cheap and simple enough to use so that making the transition to video is a relatively simple thing to do.”
Last month, New York-based Rosenblum Associates worked with The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., to develop a program to train 20 newsroom staff as videographers.
Rosenblum fashioned the Star-Ledger’s video boot camp after one he conducted for the BBC and other broadcasters.
“The training is straightforward,” he said. “We take a group of 20-25 people and we put them through an intensive boot camp where we isolate them from everybody else and force them to work only in video,” Rosenblum said. “We take away all text and all writing and go out and shoot pieces, critique them, take them apart and put them back together.”
Rosenblum said he is interested in creating a new generation of digital journalists that use video as a component to their reporting.
“Television itself is for television, but when you take video to the Web, it’s non-linear, on-demand and people watch it in a much more fragmented way,” he said.
Trib melds newspaper, TV operations in Fla.
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
Tribune Co. is experimenting with a new business model in south Florida it hopes will bring together the best of both worlds for print and broadcast advertisers.
Last March, Tribune merged the broadcast and interactive operations of its Miami television station, WSFL-TV with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
The goal, said Sun-Sentinel President and Publisher Howard Greenberg, is to woo more viewers and advertisers and attract more Web traffic.
“It’s very indicative of the creative thinking of the new management in Tribune Co,” he said. Greenberg, who also serves as interim publisher of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, was named general manager of WSFL as part of the combination.
“They are rethinking the entire media business and what we need to do be successful in the future.”
About 40 people who work for the station, a CW affiliate, will move into the Sun-Sentinel’s building later this year. It’s the first time Tribune blended television, print and online operations under one roof, Greenberg said.
“It’s all about integration and leveraging each other’s assets, both in content, promotion and sales,” he said. “It’s also about providing value for our clients that they can’t get anywhere else in the market.”
Multimedia ad packages
Greenberg said that there are tremendous cross-promotional opportunities in offering potential advertisers a one-stop print, broadcast and online package.
“The advertising community wants a lot of things. They want flexibility, so being able to offer an advertiser one contract with all the assets between the newspaper, television station and online is huge to a client,” he said.
The advertising, marketing and research staffs of the TV station and newspaper will remain separate but they are now working side-by-side in the Sun-Sentinel’s building.
Broader range
The merged operations will reach a broader range of demographics, Greenberg said, citing the Sun-Sentinel’s slightly older audience and WSFL’s younger one.
“We’ve now married to each other’s demographics, which gives us a broader range to offer an advertiser,” he said. “It allows others to have more of the same demographic with an overlap in demographics. We are bringing more to the table.”
The Sun-Sentinel will also use its online presence to drive traffic to the WSFL site.
“It’s another avenue to expose our video because the paper’s Web site has a much broader reach than WSFL’s Web site,” Greenberg said. “We think that we can leverage the substantial page views the Sun-Sentinel gets on its Web site into broadening the reach of the WSFL Web site.”
Greenberg said the Sun-Sentinel hit 40 million page views for the first time in March.
Associate Editor
Tribune Co. is experimenting with a new business model in south Florida it hopes will bring together the best of both worlds for print and broadcast advertisers.
Last March, Tribune merged the broadcast and interactive operations of its Miami television station, WSFL-TV with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
The goal, said Sun-Sentinel President and Publisher Howard Greenberg, is to woo more viewers and advertisers and attract more Web traffic.
“It’s very indicative of the creative thinking of the new management in Tribune Co,” he said. Greenberg, who also serves as interim publisher of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, was named general manager of WSFL as part of the combination.
“They are rethinking the entire media business and what we need to do be successful in the future.”
About 40 people who work for the station, a CW affiliate, will move into the Sun-Sentinel’s building later this year. It’s the first time Tribune blended television, print and online operations under one roof, Greenberg said.
“It’s all about integration and leveraging each other’s assets, both in content, promotion and sales,” he said. “It’s also about providing value for our clients that they can’t get anywhere else in the market.”
Multimedia ad packages
Greenberg said that there are tremendous cross-promotional opportunities in offering potential advertisers a one-stop print, broadcast and online package.
“The advertising community wants a lot of things. They want flexibility, so being able to offer an advertiser one contract with all the assets between the newspaper, television station and online is huge to a client,” he said.
The advertising, marketing and research staffs of the TV station and newspaper will remain separate but they are now working side-by-side in the Sun-Sentinel’s building.
Broader range
The merged operations will reach a broader range of demographics, Greenberg said, citing the Sun-Sentinel’s slightly older audience and WSFL’s younger one.
“We’ve now married to each other’s demographics, which gives us a broader range to offer an advertiser,” he said. “It allows others to have more of the same demographic with an overlap in demographics. We are bringing more to the table.”
The Sun-Sentinel will also use its online presence to drive traffic to the WSFL site.
“It’s another avenue to expose our video because the paper’s Web site has a much broader reach than WSFL’s Web site,” Greenberg said. “We think that we can leverage the substantial page views the Sun-Sentinel gets on its Web site into broadening the reach of the WSFL Web site.”
Greenberg said the Sun-Sentinel hit 40 million page views for the first time in March.
NAA releases video guide to help papers fortify ops
The Newspaper Association of America last month released an online guide aimed at newspapers looking to fortify their online video programs.
The offering, “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites” is intended to help newspapers of any size develop profitable video applications, NAA said.
The site includes tutorials on how to shoot good video, buy equipment and build newsroom sets. The guide also includes links to newspapers with already-established video operations, behind-the-scenes materials and a video glossary.
The online guide can be found at www.naa.org/Resources/Articles/Digital-Media-Online-Video-Home/Digital-Media-Online-Video-Home.aspx.
It comes as an increasing number of newspapers feature video on their Web sites, according to an NAA survey.
The survey tracked how more than 200 newspapers use video materials as part of their newsgathering operations.
Most papers are producing their own locally focused video content, NAA said.
Flash video was the most popular format for newspaper Web sites, followed by Windows Media as a distant second.
The survey also found that many reporters and photographers are shooting their own video content instead of relying on online staff.
The offering, “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites” is intended to help newspapers of any size develop profitable video applications, NAA said.
The site includes tutorials on how to shoot good video, buy equipment and build newsroom sets. The guide also includes links to newspapers with already-established video operations, behind-the-scenes materials and a video glossary.
The online guide can be found at www.naa.org/Resources/Articles/Digital-Media-Online-Video-Home/Digital-Media-Online-Video-Home.aspx.
It comes as an increasing number of newspapers feature video on their Web sites, according to an NAA survey.
The survey tracked how more than 200 newspapers use video materials as part of their newsgathering operations.
Most papers are producing their own locally focused video content, NAA said.
Flash video was the most popular format for newspaper Web sites, followed by Windows Media as a distant second.
The survey also found that many reporters and photographers are shooting their own video content instead of relying on online staff.
AP launches Mobile News Network
The Associated Press last month debuted Mobile News Network, a multimedia news portal targeted at smart phone users (see Newspapers & Technology, May 2008).
The MNN launch spans more than 100 news publishers covering 16 of the top 20 DMAs.
“With a new generation of mobile devices on the market, like the iPhone, the time is right for AP to introduce a product that brings together our members’ local news brands with AP’s unrivaled coverage of international and national events,” said Jane Seagrave, AP’s senior vice president of global product development.
The new service, optimized for the Apple iPhone, offers local and national news, photo galleries and videos, among other features.
Future phases of MNN will include content from additional newspapers and broadcasters as well as being optimized for next-generation mobile phones, AP said.
Users can access MNN via www.apnews.com or via iPhone Web app pages at www.iphone.com/webapps.
The MNN launch spans more than 100 news publishers covering 16 of the top 20 DMAs.
“With a new generation of mobile devices on the market, like the iPhone, the time is right for AP to introduce a product that brings together our members’ local news brands with AP’s unrivaled coverage of international and national events,” said Jane Seagrave, AP’s senior vice president of global product development.
The new service, optimized for the Apple iPhone, offers local and national news, photo galleries and videos, among other features.
Future phases of MNN will include content from additional newspapers and broadcasters as well as being optimized for next-generation mobile phones, AP said.
Users can access MNN via www.apnews.com or via iPhone Web app pages at www.iphone.com/webapps.
Newspapers, Web offer consumers research tool
A study commissioned by Google indicates that consumers use newspapers and the Internet in tandem to evaluate and make purchases.
According to the study, conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolemeo, among people who research products and services after seeing them advertised in newspapers, 67 percent use the Internet to find more information. Of that group, nearly 70 percent of consumers make a purchase following their additional research.
The research was the result of a study exploring the effectiveness of bringing new advertisers to the newspaper print environment through Google’s Print Ads platform.
Among other findings:
•More than half, 56 percent, of respondents either researched or purchased at least one product they saw in the newspaper in the last month.
•Of those who said they researched at least one product they saw in the newspaper, 67 percent said they conducted research online, compared with 48 percent who visited a store, 23 percent who called a store and 23 percent who asked a friend.
•About 48 percent of respondents said that seeing a product in the newspaper after seeing it online would make them trust the product more and be more likely to purchase.
The Google Print Ads program began in November 2006 with a test that included 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Since then, the program has grown to include more than 750 newspapers representing 48 of the top 50 DMAs and covering 70 percent of U.S. paid circulation.
According to the study, conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolemeo, among people who research products and services after seeing them advertised in newspapers, 67 percent use the Internet to find more information. Of that group, nearly 70 percent of consumers make a purchase following their additional research.
The research was the result of a study exploring the effectiveness of bringing new advertisers to the newspaper print environment through Google’s Print Ads platform.
Among other findings:
•More than half, 56 percent, of respondents either researched or purchased at least one product they saw in the newspaper in the last month.
•Of those who said they researched at least one product they saw in the newspaper, 67 percent said they conducted research online, compared with 48 percent who visited a store, 23 percent who called a store and 23 percent who asked a friend.
•About 48 percent of respondents said that seeing a product in the newspaper after seeing it online would make them trust the product more and be more likely to purchase.
The Google Print Ads program began in November 2006 with a test that included 50 newspapers and a small group of advertisers. Since then, the program has grown to include more than 750 newspapers representing 48 of the top 50 DMAs and covering 70 percent of U.S. paid circulation.
Bangor Daily News taps CCAS
The Bangor (Maine) Daily News selected Creative Circle Advertising Solutions to upgrade its existing Web sites and to build new sites for the paper.
The paper purchased CCAS’ suite of products including communityQ, mediasiteQ and adQ.
CCAS will redesign bangordailynews.com on the mediasiteQ platform, which will give editors the ability to edit the layout and look of the Web site.
CCAS will also build and launch a citizen journalism Web site and several other specialty sites for the Daily News.
Meantime, several Georgia publications, including the Marietta Daily Journal, Cherokee Tribune in Canton and Neighborhood Newspapers Group, selected CCAS to install new Web features on their sites.
The paper purchased CCAS’ suite of products including communityQ, mediasiteQ and adQ.
CCAS will redesign bangordailynews.com on the mediasiteQ platform, which will give editors the ability to edit the layout and look of the Web site.
CCAS will also build and launch a citizen journalism Web site and several other specialty sites for the Daily News.
Meantime, several Georgia publications, including the Marietta Daily Journal, Cherokee Tribune in Canton and Neighborhood Newspapers Group, selected CCAS to install new Web features on their sites.
Papers take different routes to content management
By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor
When it comes to content management, one size doesn’t fit all.
That was evident at this year’s Capital Convergence conference in Washington D.C., as several speakers waxed philosophic about the various content management options available to newspapers, ranging from in-house platforms created on open-source frameworks to shrink-wrapped apps.
Case in point, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which made several changes over the past few years to its CMS infrastructure.
The paper recently switched from a 29-year-old SII editorial system to Saxotech Inc.’s Editorial Go-Live app to provide more control, said Audrey Wheeler, project manager for parent Gazette Communications.
“We wanted a single database to manage all of our newsroom generated digital media and print content,” she said. “We also wanted something that would give us more flexibility and efficiency in getting changes made.”
Prior to moving to the new platform, format changes were made by the IT department and news stories had to be copied and pasted through a long series of steps from the legacy app to the online system before they could be posted online to The Gazette’s Web site, www.GazetteOnline.com.
Before The Gazette installed the new editorial app, the paper in January 2007 rolled out Saxotech Go-Live Online. That app replaced a proprietary online system it had built in 2004.
The newspaper made the switch because it could no longer keep up with the changes it wanted to make with the software, Wheeler said.
“One or two people developed that system so as we needed changes they were very slow in coming,” she said. “Further development was delayed with our limited resources and expertise.”
With the launch of the Saxotech apps, The Gazette now has the flexibility to determine how it wants to create and distribute its information, for both print and online, Wheeler said.
Homegrown open framework
Other newspaper groups continue to invest time and money in building custom CMS, using popular open-source applications.
One publisher that has followed the open-source route, Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan., has reaped countless awards and accolades for its Web operations.
And as the honors rolled in so did inquiries about Ellington, the open-source software the daily wrote and uses to manage its Web content.
That attention prompted the paper’s parent, World Co., to create an offshoot, dubbed Mediaphormedia, to commercially market Ellington, said Dan Cox, president of the unit.
Ellington relies on an open-source platform consisting of Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and Python. A software development app, Django, allows programmers to write custom code that interacts with Ellington data through a set of APIs, Cox said.
Cox said it’s important for newspapers to embrace new technology so they can distribute their content across a wide variety of platforms.
“A lot of companies you see are asking how to get their print product online. We’re coming at it from a different direction,” he said. “Online should be the space where we are producing a great amount of content and disseminating the best of that content back into traditional products or other distribution avenues.”
To that end, Journal-World often posts its content on multiple sites.
Since making Ellington available commercially, a number of other newspapers have purchased the app, including The Washington Post and Naples (Fla.) Daily News.
Content and resource management
At GateHouse Media Inc., the publisher’s CMS serves double-duty. It manages GateHouse’s Web content and Web resources for the publisher’s more than 500 newspapers, said Howard Owens, director of digital publishing.
The company began installing Zope Corp.’s Zope4Media content management software late last year and will finish deployment in 2008, Owens said.
Zope4Media relies on both open-source and proprietary software.
“Our challenge is running hundreds of Web sites on the same content management system,” Owens said. “One of the great things about Zope is that they handle all the hosting and infrastructure support while we can concentrate on building great Web sites.”
That allows GateHouse newspapers to funnel specific content to other sister publications for print and online use. For example, if a newspaper in Ohio covers a Boston Red Sox/Cleveland Indians game, the New England publication can pick up and run the story.
The standardized approach also allows GateHouse editors to pick up the slack when a sister newspaper needs temporary relief, Owens said, citing times where an editor at one GateHouse daily might be needed to oversee content generated at a second newspaper.
Triangle of death?
WASHINGTON — Gauging the long-term value of software can be a challenging proposition.
Just ask Ken Rickard, deputy vice president for strategic partnership development at Morris Communications Co. LLC.
At a Nexpo 2008 seminar, Rickard outlined the long-term value of open and proprietary software through a chart that illustrated the downward and upward value of the two types of software. A third line, meantime, illustrated “good enough.”
He said that, initially, the value of proprietary software outstrips open source.
“I’m going to agree that initially Microsoft Office had a high value and did things that nobody else could do,” he said.
But over time, the worth of proprietary software dips below open source, especially without the support of software upgrades, Rickard said.
Conversely, open source rises above the good-enough line over a given period of time, he said.
But now there is a gray area newspapers also need to be aware of.
“The content management position for newspapers is that we are in the triangle of death where neither the proprietary nor open-source solution is good enough for our needs,” Rickard said.
One way of weathering the triangle is for newspapers to work with each other to develop a common platform, in the process potentially aiding their competitors, he said.
“Newspapers tend to think of technology as a competitive advantage and the answer is that it’s not,” he said. “In very few cases are we in direct competitive markets.”
Rickard is a proponent of open source software, namely Drupal, an open source content management platform.
Associate Editor
When it comes to content management, one size doesn’t fit all.
That was evident at this year’s Capital Convergence conference in Washington D.C., as several speakers waxed philosophic about the various content management options available to newspapers, ranging from in-house platforms created on open-source frameworks to shrink-wrapped apps.
Case in point, The Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which made several changes over the past few years to its CMS infrastructure.
The paper recently switched from a 29-year-old SII editorial system to Saxotech Inc.’s Editorial Go-Live app to provide more control, said Audrey Wheeler, project manager for parent Gazette Communications.
“We wanted a single database to manage all of our newsroom generated digital media and print content,” she said. “We also wanted something that would give us more flexibility and efficiency in getting changes made.”
Prior to moving to the new platform, format changes were made by the IT department and news stories had to be copied and pasted through a long series of steps from the legacy app to the online system before they could be posted online to The Gazette’s Web site, www.GazetteOnline.com.
Before The Gazette installed the new editorial app, the paper in January 2007 rolled out Saxotech Go-Live Online. That app replaced a proprietary online system it had built in 2004.
The newspaper made the switch because it could no longer keep up with the changes it wanted to make with the software, Wheeler said.
“One or two people developed that system so as we needed changes they were very slow in coming,” she said. “Further development was delayed with our limited resources and expertise.”
With the launch of the Saxotech apps, The Gazette now has the flexibility to determine how it wants to create and distribute its information, for both print and online, Wheeler said.
Homegrown open framework
Other newspaper groups continue to invest time and money in building custom CMS, using popular open-source applications.
One publisher that has followed the open-source route, Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan., has reaped countless awards and accolades for its Web operations.
And as the honors rolled in so did inquiries about Ellington, the open-source software the daily wrote and uses to manage its Web content.
That attention prompted the paper’s parent, World Co., to create an offshoot, dubbed Mediaphormedia, to commercially market Ellington, said Dan Cox, president of the unit.
Ellington relies on an open-source platform consisting of Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and Python. A software development app, Django, allows programmers to write custom code that interacts with Ellington data through a set of APIs, Cox said.
Cox said it’s important for newspapers to embrace new technology so they can distribute their content across a wide variety of platforms.
“A lot of companies you see are asking how to get their print product online. We’re coming at it from a different direction,” he said. “Online should be the space where we are producing a great amount of content and disseminating the best of that content back into traditional products or other distribution avenues.”
To that end, Journal-World often posts its content on multiple sites.
Since making Ellington available commercially, a number of other newspapers have purchased the app, including The Washington Post and Naples (Fla.) Daily News.
Content and resource management
At GateHouse Media Inc., the publisher’s CMS serves double-duty. It manages GateHouse’s Web content and Web resources for the publisher’s more than 500 newspapers, said Howard Owens, director of digital publishing.
The company began installing Zope Corp.’s Zope4Media content management software late last year and will finish deployment in 2008, Owens said.
Zope4Media relies on both open-source and proprietary software.
“Our challenge is running hundreds of Web sites on the same content management system,” Owens said. “One of the great things about Zope is that they handle all the hosting and infrastructure support while we can concentrate on building great Web sites.”
That allows GateHouse newspapers to funnel specific content to other sister publications for print and online use. For example, if a newspaper in Ohio covers a Boston Red Sox/Cleveland Indians game, the New England publication can pick up and run the story.
The standardized approach also allows GateHouse editors to pick up the slack when a sister newspaper needs temporary relief, Owens said, citing times where an editor at one GateHouse daily might be needed to oversee content generated at a second newspaper.
Triangle of death?
WASHINGTON — Gauging the long-term value of software can be a challenging proposition.
Just ask Ken Rickard, deputy vice president for strategic partnership development at Morris Communications Co. LLC.
At a Nexpo 2008 seminar, Rickard outlined the long-term value of open and proprietary software through a chart that illustrated the downward and upward value of the two types of software. A third line, meantime, illustrated “good enough.”
He said that, initially, the value of proprietary software outstrips open source.
“I’m going to agree that initially Microsoft Office had a high value and did things that nobody else could do,” he said.
But over time, the worth of proprietary software dips below open source, especially without the support of software upgrades, Rickard said.
Conversely, open source rises above the good-enough line over a given period of time, he said.
But now there is a gray area newspapers also need to be aware of.
“The content management position for newspapers is that we are in the triangle of death where neither the proprietary nor open-source solution is good enough for our needs,” Rickard said.
One way of weathering the triangle is for newspapers to work with each other to develop a common platform, in the process potentially aiding their competitors, he said.
“Newspapers tend to think of technology as a competitive advantage and the answer is that it’s not,” he said. “In very few cases are we in direct competitive markets.”
Rickard is a proponent of open source software, namely Drupal, an open source content management platform.
4 questions with David A. Milliron
David Milliron, vice president of media services at Caspio Inc., talks about the benefits newspapers can get from using online database applications.
What trends do you see emerging for online database applications?
One common trend in online database applications involves the consolidation of databases on a single Web page. The public does not want to scour an entire Web site to find your database offerings. Keep those data sets updated and continue to offer new interactive databases and you will train the public to return to your site for news and information.
The fever for posting online databases is also spilling over into sister-company broadcast Web sites. I am seeing newspapers teaming up with a television station in their same market to consolidate efforts that lead to cross-promotion of Web sites (see related story, page 38).
Another trend is to allow readers to interact with many databases via a common interface. This gives readers, for example, the ability to search home sales, school statistics and crime reports by filling in search information one time. The results are interactive and can be commingled with interactive mapping.
We also see publishers looking to outsource the maintenance and delivery of national databases containing hyper-local content to allow syndication across all of their company’s Web sites. It is not only labor intensive but also costly for individual newspapers to obtain and process the same database, particularly with each being responsible for regular updates. By outsourcing these efforts, a company significantly cuts its overhead while being able to offer more robust real-time local content.
How are newspapers using database applications to attract local readers to their Web sites?
I call it “online voyeurism,” and when done right it can become viral. Online readers have a hunger for instant and timely information that includes public databases. Put a public salary database online and your Web clicks will spike. But stop there and your traffic will fade faster than yesterday’s news.
By keeping databases fresh and by rotating content you will train your readers to become dependent on your site not only for news but relevant information. The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union’s Databank site does just that. It is fresh and you always know what is new. And every database has a common look and feel that is inviting to the public.
Other data sets that are an instant hit online are historical lottery numbers, anything school- or crime-related, restaurant guides and inspection reports, property records and home sales, and vital statistic databases.
Why are online database applications becoming important for newspapers?
Newspaper Web sites have too many competitors vying for the same advertising dollars. A spike in traffic here and there is great, but advertisers expect consistent traffic from a well-defined audience.
Databases clearly boost revenues. Link all of your education-related databases from a common Web page, for instance, and commingle them with your local education stories and blogs and other information and you are quickly in a position to deliver a specific demographic to your advertisers. The higher number of searches conducted on the databases, the more advertisements that can be served up to your readers.
In addition to revenues, newspapers are eager to increase their overall online real estate, and database-generated content can help fill that void. For instance, one newspaper recently ran a user-generated contest where readers submitted recipes in specific categories. When the contest ended, the newspaper was able to provide a comprehensive database of user-generated recipes.
What tools are publishers looking for in database applications?
Publishers want online databases that generate audience and traffic. Those databases must be granular, intuitive and easy to navigate. Social networking and interactive mapping features are also important.
Database applications need to be flexible and portable. An application built for one site needs to integrate with multiple sites using a variety of different deployment models including transportable widgets that drive new traffic sources to your Web site. Publishers also expect database applications to integrate with third-party ad servers with little effort.
Publishers are looking for tools that do not require huge upfront costs. More and more publishers are outsourcing the creation and maintenance of their database applications. A relative low entry point with a high return on investment is the mantra for today’s online database publishing world.
What trends do you see emerging for online database applications?
One common trend in online database applications involves the consolidation of databases on a single Web page. The public does not want to scour an entire Web site to find your database offerings. Keep those data sets updated and continue to offer new interactive databases and you will train the public to return to your site for news and information.
The fever for posting online databases is also spilling over into sister-company broadcast Web sites. I am seeing newspapers teaming up with a television station in their same market to consolidate efforts that lead to cross-promotion of Web sites (see related story, page 38).
Another trend is to allow readers to interact with many databases via a common interface. This gives readers, for example, the ability to search home sales, school statistics and crime reports by filling in search information one time. The results are interactive and can be commingled with interactive mapping.
We also see publishers looking to outsource the maintenance and delivery of national databases containing hyper-local content to allow syndication across all of their company’s Web sites. It is not only labor intensive but also costly for individual newspapers to obtain and process the same database, particularly with each being responsible for regular updates. By outsourcing these efforts, a company significantly cuts its overhead while being able to offer more robust real-time local content.
How are newspapers using database applications to attract local readers to their Web sites?
I call it “online voyeurism,” and when done right it can become viral. Online readers have a hunger for instant and timely information that includes public databases. Put a public salary database online and your Web clicks will spike. But stop there and your traffic will fade faster than yesterday’s news.
By keeping databases fresh and by rotating content you will train your readers to become dependent on your site not only for news but relevant information. The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union’s Databank site does just that. It is fresh and you always know what is new. And every database has a common look and feel that is inviting to the public.
Other data sets that are an instant hit online are historical lottery numbers, anything school- or crime-related, restaurant guides and inspection reports, property records and home sales, and vital statistic databases.
Why are online database applications becoming important for newspapers?
Newspaper Web sites have too many competitors vying for the same advertising dollars. A spike in traffic here and there is great, but advertisers expect consistent traffic from a well-defined audience.
Databases clearly boost revenues. Link all of your education-related databases from a common Web page, for instance, and commingle them with your local education stories and blogs and other information and you are quickly in a position to deliver a specific demographic to your advertisers. The higher number of searches conducted on the databases, the more advertisements that can be served up to your readers.
In addition to revenues, newspapers are eager to increase their overall online real estate, and database-generated content can help fill that void. For instance, one newspaper recently ran a user-generated contest where readers submitted recipes in specific categories. When the contest ended, the newspaper was able to provide a comprehensive database of user-generated recipes.
What tools are publishers looking for in database applications?
Publishers want online databases that generate audience and traffic. Those databases must be granular, intuitive and easy to navigate. Social networking and interactive mapping features are also important.
Database applications need to be flexible and portable. An application built for one site needs to integrate with multiple sites using a variety of different deployment models including transportable widgets that drive new traffic sources to your Web site. Publishers also expect database applications to integrate with third-party ad servers with little effort.
Publishers are looking for tools that do not require huge upfront costs. More and more publishers are outsourcing the creation and maintenance of their database applications. A relative low entry point with a high return on investment is the mantra for today’s online database publishing world.
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