Bricks & Clicks
The Rockford Register Star is more than a newspaper: the ink on print or the “bricks” in the News Tower. We’re a multimedia news and information company: the “clicks” on our Web site and the TV clips on WREX-13. This blog explains our fast-changing media environment and interacts with our readers to show how and why we do what we do. |
Add comment February 28th, 2009
We’ve added a new feature on rrstar.com called ShareThis, which allows you to share stories across several social networking. Think Facebook and Digg. You can also use this tool to e-mail content on our Web site to your family and friends. I just tried it out by sharing this link on my Facebook page.
2 comments February 27th, 2009
I realize that only journalists may care about this story.
I am a journalist and I care.
I wrote yesterday about the final edition of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Today, I watched this well-done video that documents from the time staffers learned the Rocky was for sale through yesterday when they found out that today’s paper would be the last. The competition and now the only newspaper in Denver, The Post, covered the story, too. Only 10 of the Rocky’s 250 newsroom staffers will be absorbed by The Post.
Found “I Want My Rocky” today, too. It’s a blog started by Rocky staffers after they heard about the sale and rumors surfaced about a shut down.
I got teary-eyed reading/watching this stuff.
Add comment February 26th, 2009
I blogged about Twitter the other day. Then I learned about this feed from the Rocky Mountain News, which will cease to exist after tomorrow. As a journalist, it’s hard to read the staff’s tweets. It is like writing about your own funeral, one person tweeted. How true.
2 comments February 24th, 2009
I am familiarizing myself with Twitter, and I still have a lot to learn. Here’s what Twitter is straight from Twitter: “In countries all around the world, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens — from breaking world news to updates from friends.” By the way, these tweets are 140 characters or less, making them more like text messages than blog posts.
Take the hotel explosion in Mumbai a couple months ago. Millions of tweets (or mini posts) were made on Twitter from questions about loved ones who were feared dead to what people in Mumbai were seeing. It made me think back to 9/11 and what that day would have been like had Twitter and some of these other social networking sites had existed.
Journalists are getting on the Twitter bandwagon. Some quickly. Some slowly. One of the best media sites I’ve seen is done by the statesman.com. They even link to the Top 50 people who Tweet … “Tweeples.”
NYTimes.com tech guy David Pogue put together this video on Twitter. Pogue, who puts a humorous spin on techy stuff, has done videos and columns on Bluetooth headsets, Skype, the iPhone (my favorite) and more.
4 comments February 23rd, 2009
We’ve told you before about rrstar.com’s e-mail headlines.
Did you know you also can get weekly content sent to you from HealthyRockford.com? Look for the sign-up box on the right. We know you’re busy. That’s why these reminders can help.
Add comment February 21st, 2009
The Arts4All blog debuted on our site this week. Written by members of the Rockford Area Arts Council, the blog focuses on, well, art news, events and more in the Rock River Valley.
Add comment February 20th, 2009
I’m still riding the high spirits from last night’s Rockford Woman of the Year reception, where we announced Judge Janet Holmgren as the 2009 award winner.
See our coverage rounded up here for all the links.
Since we’ve written all about the event already, I thought I’d share a few “behind the scenes” moments:
My favorite part of the night was seeing the judge’s mother, Ruth Hoover, who flew up from Florida to be here. She’s called me a few times through the process, asking for magazines and thanking the magazine for her daughter’s recognition.
This morning, Ruth called me again, saying she “almost fainted” when she saw this photo of her on the front page. It completely captured the evening at the Rockford Art Museum.
She also told me she was happy she could speak for a minute at the event, even if she couldn’t say all the things she wanted to. “I’m a ham,” she said. Yes, she is. See me laughing in the background?
Congrats again to all 41 nominees and our five finalists below: Peg Wilkerson, Mary Bartel, Janet Holmgren, Judy Schultz and Monica Williams.
1 comment February 20th, 2009
Web sites, just like ours, have terms of service.
Let’s just say Facebook changed its “TOS,” setting off a frenzy of people worried that Big Bro declared the right to own their content forevermore. An L.A. Times story puts it this way:
In this case, users weren’t content to hand Facebook the rights to their personal data. They also were unsatisfied by a (CEO Mark) Zuckerberg blog post Monday that many thought amounted to “just trust us.” Users carried out their protests on the website, using the tools Facebook provides for posting blog entries and rallying around causes.
Facebook since has pulled back while it considers what to do next.
I found pretty good points of view from the New York Times.
A pretty good summary of what has happened is here, as well as a lesson. See below.
… why would anybody pay more attention to Facebook’s terms of service than to the other contracts we casually accept? Who reads the roughly 17,500-word “terms and conditions” contract governing Apple’s iTunes Store before buying a song? Who digests Microsoft’s nearly 5,500-word license for Windows Vista before booting up a new PC?
For that matter, how many home buyers read in full the terms of their mortgages before signing stacks of settlement documents?
A company might be understood, if not forgiven, for thinking that people have gotten out of the habit of reading contracts.
Not for the first time, Facebook has learned otherwise. The company, however, can scrape some good out of this debacle by setting a better example.
It’s started things off well by prominently flagging its changed terms of use in a headline atop users’ home pages. The company is also inviting users to contribute to the next set of terms; the group Facebook set up for that purpose drew more than 30,000 users in the first 12 hours.
But their input shouldn’t be limited to providing ideas that Facebook can grind into the usual legalistic sludge. The company should post a draft of its next terms for members to work over.
Wired offers another lesson:
The way through is clear. Craft the legalese to protect the website, but include the comic book version of Moby Dick. Make it very clear what happens when and if someone quits. And regardless, users should know that anything that gets put up on Facebook is likely to survive whatever deletion the site might honestly undertake in hindsight — it’s the nature of the internet to remember the worst.
And perhaps more importantly, sites need make it easy for people to delete everything if they so choose. Few will, but giving the option prevents posts like the Consumerist’s from turning into a tedious three-day media affair.
P.S. Loved this headline: “About-Facebook…”
1 comment February 19th, 2009
Have you ever heard of Kachingle? It’s basically an itty-bitty, voluntary tip jar for blog readers to contribute to sites they visit. Click!
This has come up ever since much buzz has been made over how to save newspapers, including micropayment on the Web.
The Newsosaur (an “old” journalist exploring our “new” clothing) says the math just won’t add up. Meaning the revenue would barely pay for a handful of reporters, basically.
1 comment February 18th, 2009
The good news? They’re showing an increase in readership.
As rated by Nielsen Online, using average monthly unique visitors, they are:
1. The New York Times
2. USA Today
3. The Washington Post
4. The Los Angeles Times
5. The Wall Street Journal
6. The Boston Globe
7. New York Post
8. Chicago Tribune
9. New York Daily News
10. San Francisco Chronicle
11. Newsday
12. Politico (Yes, it does actually have a newspaper.)
13. Chicago Sun-Times
14. The Houston Chronicle
15. The Dallas Morning News
I read four of the top five, plus the Trib, on an occasional basis. How about you?
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