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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 01:20:21 pm
Click the audio link below to test whether you remember the Internet in the good ol' days of baud. (You youngsters don't know how good you have it.) The fellow geek who sent this to me now has it as his ring tone. How cool is that?
Categories: Local Webosphere
• 6 comments
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 02:00:46 pm
Both gave informative presentations despite the fact that there was no projector or screen, so no show and tell. So it was challenging for them to explain to those in the audience who didn't know what a blog is or how FeedTacoma works (about half of the audience raised their hand when Derek asked how many had visited Exit 133). Each has an impressive story to tell, really. And both were quick to credit Tacoma and the community of users on their respective sites for helping them grow into what they've become over the past couple years. I don't think you could pick up either site and put it down in another town and have the same results (something they each alluded to). It's not the software that makes these sites special, it's the people - both those who created and power them and those who consume and contribute.
Categories: Local Webosphere
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 09:13:32 am
The service provider for our weather forecasts is experiencing some serious technical issues, which has interrupted our ability to provide weather information on thenewstribune.com. I'm told by my contact at Weather Underground that they are working on the problem and hope for a fix very soon. If you are technically inclined and curious, here's what happened:
UPDATE (1:45 p.m.): The service has been restored.
Categories: TheNewsTribune.com
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 02:48:09 pm
Since many of you who visit this site probably also frequent the Seattle newspaper web sites, you'll want to know about this:
More information here.
Categories: Local Webosphere
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 12:15:27 pm
The South Sound is home to one of the leading online radio streams. KPLU's Jazz24, which started streaming jazz music 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in February of this year, attracts more than 70,000 listeners each month. Webcast Metrics ranks it among the top 20 most popular webstreams. Jazz24 also has a "now playing" feature, updated playlists with links to buy the music you hear, links to KPLU's live studio sessions and concerts and the new NPR Music website, which features content contributed by KPLU. Internet radio is still a growing segment of the web, even though there is disagreement over how to measure the audience (which affects advertising rates and sales). More than seven million people tuned in to the top web radio stations in December, while one report suggested that more than 20 million people listen in during an average month. I'm thankful that KEXP has such great streaming over the web – I listen to a healthy dose of it from home (it's against the rules at work) ever since the station stopped broadcasting from Tacoma. This always-on, always-connected culture makes geography obsolete; I recently found an application to listen to satellite radio on my iPhone, too.
Categories: Local Webosphere, Web 2.0
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 04:25:12 pm
That was how reporter Sean Robinson set up the data from a new study released by the Readership Institute as he sent a link to the Newsroom via email today. The study found strong interest in the printed newspaper among readers, which goes directly counter to all the "print is dead" talk we are used to reading.
This doesn't surprise me. Even though I'm the editor of the web site, when I'm talking with people in the community I mostly field questions and comments about the newspaper, not the web site. So my anecdotal research mirrors what the Readership Institute found. Unfortunately that doesn't make the economics of publishing a daily newspaper in today's environment any easier. It's just nice when the news about the industry isn't ALL bad.
Categories: Online journalism
• 1 comment
Thursday, July 10th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 04:04:23 pm
Leading last month's most popular reads was Scott Fontaine's piece on the tragic story of Rosemary Dye, a Tacoma woman blazed a trail in seeking a successful career in aviation but was undone by alcohol and drugs. Top Blogs: 1. Seahawks Insider
Categories: TheNewsTribune.com
Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 01:17:38 pm
This ran in today's paper. It would be funnier if it didn't hit so close to home. ;)
Categories: TheNewsTribune.com
• 1 comment
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 09:15:07 am
If you have visited the comments on our stories recently, I apologize. This is not what we had in mind. At their best, story comments add layers to a news story that a newsroom simply can't. Local expertise, interaction, discussion and a healthy exchange of ideas based on the news in the report. At their worst, story comments are nothing more than senseless drivel. Mean-spirited personal attacks between people who know each other's screen names intimately but know very little about their adversaries in real life. A few years ago, just when blogs were really taking off and hitting mainstream awareness, we started talking about allowing comments on our news stories. Around the same time, we had a focus group of younger readers tell us they would love the opportunity to interact with the news through comments. They said, "We want to play, too." We welcomed the idea of allowing readers to hold us accountable, just as we try to hold those in power accountable to our community. We looked forward to the exchange of ideas around our news stories between locally interested citizens. But we also knew that some moderation would be critical; a truly open forum could potentially devolve into a cesspool of personal attacks and bitter name-calling (human nature being what it is). And we didn't accurately forecast the volume of comments that we would receive on a daily basis, let alone those that are posted at all hours of the night. So our minor commitment to foster this community – including the ability for users to "flag" comments they deem inappropriate – has proven to be insufficient. We now find ourselves at a crossroads. The comments on our stories are marred too frequently by back-and-forth attacks between a small number of regulars who accuse one another of past transgressions and posing as alternate identities. We receive complaints that many of the commenters are, in fact, the same person holding court with himself or herself for all to see. And we are not alone; most news sites that allow comments have even worse conversations running on their sites. From what I hear from online editors around the country, we're actually pretty lucky (which is really scary).
Categories: Local Webosphere
• 13 comments
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 02:34:15 pm
KUOW's excellent Weekday program featured a few local bloggers today who discussed several issues related to the challenge and opportunities for hyperlocal online publishing. The West Seattle Blog and OlyBlog were included among the guests, but surprisingly (to me, anyway) no one from T-town was on the list. Seems like Derek Young or Kevin Freitas would have been able to offer some interesting perspectives. But the session also illustrates the active local online communities growing in locations outside the 253 area code. Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 11:13:56 am
Categories: Local Webosphere
Friday, June 13th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 05:33:20 pm
A few weeks ago, you might have noticed a new advertising feature on thenewstribune.com. Just below the navigation bar near the top of the page, a large billboard ad would appear and expand vertically down the page, pushing the news and photos down with it. This is a form of interruption advertising which, of course, has been around for decades (and it most popular on TV). It really only works if the interruption isn't so great that it aggravates the audience and drives them away. So we agreed that our new expanding billboard ads would come with limits: no visitor to the web site would more see than two per visit. The problem was the ads were scheduled incorrectly and there didn't seem to be any limit. Naturally, this frustrated many users and we received about a dozen emails complaining about the intrusion. To further the problem, the "Close" link on some of the ads didn't work properly and sent visitors to the advertiser's site instead of closing the ad. This resulted in more frustration. I'm happy to report that both problems have been fixed. So, while you'll still see a couple expanding billboard ads on our site each time you visit, we hope you understand that we will continue to look for new ways to deliver attractive audiences (that's you!) to our local advertisers and support the news gathering and web publishing operation here. We just need to work harder to do it right the first time.
Categories: TheNewsTribune.com
• 6 comments
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 04:14:51 pm
Steve Rubel pointed out the potential of FriendFeed today, which takes the content stream concept to a whole new level. I've been meaning to check out FriendFeed for a while, but it took Steve's blog to get me to go sign up. Rubel writes:
So while we can't see where all this is going or how it will affect news consumption, it's important for news publishers to be involved in the exploration and experimentation, not just waiting on the sidelines for the early adopters to figure it all out. So what do you think about Twitter? Game-changing communication technology or flavor-of-the-month fad? Friday, June 6th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 11:57:01 am
Just a quick note to let you know about our latest addition to the TNT blog lineup: GO Arts. Rosemary Ponnekanti, who follows the local arts scene, will keep readers informed on galleries, theaters, classical music and more (with a little help from other TNTers).
Categories: Local Webosphere
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 04:25:46 pm
Joining our usual suspects of sports and crime stories on the most popular list from May are a pair of stories about bikini-clad baristas. Do you think we would have known how popular those stories would be prior to the internet age when we can track everything?
Most popular stories: Most popular blogs: 1. Seahawks Insider Most popular multimedia:
Categories: TheNewsTribune.com
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 11:08:30 am
The Seattle Times published an interesting editorial Sunday, cheering on a group of French-language newspapers in Belgium who have filed suit against Google. The Times editorial writers suggest the surging stock price of Google and the plummeting stock prices of newspaper companies are evidence of the need to change copyright laws. The store shelf metaphor doesn't work for me, however. This is about a new era of information and access and we can't try to force our previous models to fit. The fact that newspapers are struggling financially to evolve (along with many other industries) doesn't mean the rules need to be changed just because the game has. All I know is that I wouldn't want to try to ramp up a business model for news online without traffic from Google. And if this lawsuit is successful, then Yahoo must be sued, too. And other news aggregators after that. We should be focusing our energy on innovating and taking advantage of new possibilities, instead of hoping that the rules will change so we don't have to.
Categories: Online journalism, Web 2.0
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 05:42:41 pm
We're taking the suggestion and acting on it. We've ordered a Kindle and will begin to experiment with how to deliver news and information on this new platform, not fully knowing whether this device is more iPhone or Newton. Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 08:58:56 am
Filed under "how cool is that?" I offer the latest advancement in web video. It's a technology called DimP, which stands for Direct Manipulation Video Player, meaning the user can control subjects in the video. Check out this demonstration: More information and a longer video is here, and you can read the Techcrunch take on it here.
Categories: Local Webosphere
Friday, May 23rd, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 09:23:27 am
One part of my job here is to advise the reporters who use blogs to cover their beats. Which can be a little tricky when I don't spend much time practicing what I preach. But I like to think I'm a better coach than a player, so occasionally I'll forward some insight or information that I think will help them improve their blogging. Since a fair amount of the readers of this blog also have their own blogs, I thought I'd share my latest offering. It's from Mike Davidson, the founder of Newsvine, who dissects a prototypical linkblogger named Jason Kottke to highlight what makes his work so compelling.
A linkblogger, for those not familiar with the term, is someone who is fanatical about scanning the web for interesting news, comment, photos and video and then shares the best of what they find with their blog readers. The posts can be short and only provide a link, or the linkblogger can provide analysis and context and tie together seemingly separate links in a way that adds value for the blog reader. All bloggers link to other material in some fashion and with some frequency, so even if your blog is not primarily a linkblog, you will benefit from Davidson's analysis. "Linkbloggers remember," he writes, "The setup is everything."
Categories: Online journalism, Web 2.0
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
Posted by Mark Briggs @ 09:31:26 am
That is the question that a group of driving instructors, State Patrol troopers and volunteers will put to the test this week, according to this article on the P-I's web site. Personally, I think so. But it probably has more to due with the volume of cars on the roads in Seattle vs. Tacoma, and not necessarily with personal driving talent or disposition. The more cars on the road, the more chance of someone cutting you off. And only Seattle has the triple-lane-change move required to get to the Mercer exit from 520. We've been writing a fair amount about cars on the road lately, including Sunday's story on the 10 intersections with the most crashes (not coincidentally, the intersections with the most cars) and a piece a few weeks back about road rage in Pierce County. As gas prices continue to rise and tempers flare, maybe we should all just take the bus like Andrew. UPDATE: We've posted our own news story now. UPDATED UPDATE: And the results are in.
Categories: Local Webosphere
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Derek Young and Kevin Freitas served as the featured speakers at today's City Club luncheon at the Landmark. So Dave Zeeck and I crashed the party to hear their thoughts about social media and local online community.
Like many other news organizations, we've been experimenting with 
Mark Briggs is editor of thenewstribune.com, the flagship web site for The News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma, Wash. He has worked in new media for newspapers since 2000 and has contributed to workshops, seminars and textbooks on the topic. He will use this blog to track the evolution of the local webosphere and other emerging trends that are important to the South Sound region. 
