January 24, 2007Blogs as news tools; homepage multimediaA few events this past week show the importance of blogs as ways to relay news and information, as well provide a means for readers to interact and comment. This past weekend, the region witnessed its first winter storm. Its first mention, approach and day of arrival were covered by Kevin Myatt and his Weather Journal blog. Kevin's blog provided the cornerstone of the coverage for Sunday, and made several updates throughout the day as the storm progressed. Traffic increased and stayed up throughout the storm. Kevin fielded several comments, too, from users who had been in the storm or were reporting its impact on their area. On Tuesday night, members of the editorial team used the RoundTable blog as a way to comment on President Bush's State of the Union speech and the Democratic response. While most of the comments came from the team, a few users added their own viewpoints, creating a sense of community during a live news event. Finally, Virginia Tech's men's basketball team was on the road in Miami Tuesday. The outcome was posted to the Press Box blog, which has been used recently to list high school scores as the games end. This gets the scores up faster and allows the site (and paper) to compete with other media outlets outside of the paper's traditional publishing cycle. These may seem like small feats to some with a "What took you so long?" mentality, but they're worth noting. On a related note, if you visit roanoke.com's news page today, you'll see a mini-Soundslide where the news photo normally appears. We've done this before, but it's something that I'm hoping to occur more regularly. |
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Comments
[January 25, 2007 7:40 PM]
LisaI have been slowly scouring Roanoke.com for the past few weeks, first in an attempt to locate the process by which a reader might submit a commentary piece and then, as I realized that there was sort of an interactive flavor to the site, I started thinking about how I, too, might jump into the fray and voice my opinions. I had several problems with both avenues.
My original query (1/10) was fielded by Katherine Bryndza who forwarded it to Neil Harvey on 1/12 who forwarded it to Karen Trout on the same day. She was kind enough to respond on 1/16. This didn’t strike me as a particularly speedy turnaround time and if the info was on the site (maybe it is and I just couldn’t find it) in the first place, as it is for letters to the editor, I wouldn’t have wasted anyone’s valuable time.
Once I attempted to navigate the blogs I became dead in the water. It was difficult to find my way around and get back to where I started. Maybe it’s just me, but some of the blog titles are confusing, if not misleading. My husband walked by and asked why I was on a page that was called “404 Not Found” if it was not there. I told him it was just a cute title for a real page. “Oh”, he said and moved on, but I got the impression that he thought it was silly, not cute.
I was really stunned to find such a lack of response to what I would have thought to be rather provocative issues and then mayhem about The First Sister appearing in a funeral pic. (For the record, my 13 year old daughter showed me the picture, asked who she was and I deduced, correctly, her identity. Also, for the record, I have a younger daughter whose middle name is Dorothy and is sometimes referred to as “Dor” or “Doro”, never “Dora”. No, I do not expect a comment from Dan because he has removed himself seven or eight times from discussing this further).
At one point in my Roanoke.com journey, my husband said he should write a comment about something but then said he wouldn’t bother because “they” would think it was just me trying to post again using a different name with the same email address. Since we have completely different political points of view (Note: his are wrong) and usually (but not always – I did vote for Clinton the one time) cancel each other’s votes in elections, he decided not to confuse anyone. That made me think about Josh.
Josh is everywhere. He doesn’t seem to sleep, he has an opinion on everything and it usually is in direct opposition to the editorial position of the paper.
I have pretty much concluded that Josh is really a member of the editorial team. They probably sit around at their weekly team meetings and “assign” someone to play “Josh” to exercise/sharpen their collective persuasive arguments for or against ANYTHING. “Josh” allows them to say anything they want, then they can cyber-wink at each other and tell "him" to calm down.
How do you get to be Josh? Do you draw straws? Is this a coveted or deplored assignment? Does it help? Or is it really J.O.S.H. (Just Our Staff Here) a la H.A.L. from “A Space Odyssey, 2001”, a computer generated program that analyzes the political content of each editorial and then spits out the most antagonistic answer possible. How else does Josh win the 1000th post award? It is an inside game! The gig is up!
If the truth be told, part of me agrees with some of what Josh has to say, I think, kinda, sorta, maybe…when I can decipher it. And that is part of what makes me proud to be an American. We can agree and disagree in a more or less public forum. Which gets me back to why I was writing this in the first place.
Roanoke.com may be winning awards and be the most Googable (a new word?) for “Roanoke” hits, but is it sufficiently user friendly (and have enough publicity) to achieve its goals for blogging viability? Just wondering…
I do think Roanoke.com has wonderful features, I just didn’t realize until recently that there was so much more beneath the surface and wanted to offer feedback on my experiences. So I am putting it here on the 404 Not Found, to see if it gets found, which somehow seems ironic.
[January 25, 2007 11:11 PM]
John JacksonLisa,
Thanks for the comments. I can't speak for Josh's presence, though I believe that's been discussed before on the RoundTable blog.
We chose the 404 name because there was a time when our 404 page was the most-visited page on our site. That's not something you want for a news site. But we were switching the way we serve and load pages at the time. It was something that we noticed and thought it would make a fitting title for site functionality and what we do to put roanoke.com together.
We do value user feedback and constantly try to make the site more accessible for those seeking all kinds of content. You're always welcome to e-mail me with questions or comments about the site. Hopefully, you'll keep checking in to let us know what you think.
[January 29, 2007 5:59 PM]
LisaThanks John.
I still find it confusing to roam around, maybe it just takes getting used to.
I think it is frustrating that the blogs seem so underutilized (well, except for Josh)and the message boards get so much venom. It seems like they exist in parallel worlds, yet are rather disconnected. I have been lurking instead of posting because it's easier and I don't have a lot of time. I probably would do more if I knew what I was doing and where to look.
I am still exploring and I really like what I see, congratulations on the awards. I am still learning...
How about an online (and/or print) tutorial for navigating?