http://web.aan.org web publishing best practices Wed, 19 Sep 2007 20:49:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en This blog was archived in August 2007. Thanks to all of our readers, and an especial thanks to contributor Cathy Resmer. http://web.aan.org/blog_archived/ When the 1-35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 1, 2007, the staff of the local alt, the City Pages, rushed to convert their existing "Blotter" blog to cover the tragedy. Editor in Chief Kevin Hoffman explains the project via email: Why did you decide to use the Blotter ... http://web.aan.org/bridges_collapse_breaking_news/ I joined Facebook a couple months ago, and have been struggling to figure out how to use it to build a Seven Days-centered Facebook community. I get the sense that creating a Seven Days profile is not cool. It seems like the thing to do is create a Seven Days group, ... http://web.aan.org/aan_on_facebook/ I have been following the Creative Loafing purchase of the Chicago Reader and the Washington City Paper carefully, because: 1) I used to work at Creative Loafing. 2) It's a major event in the alt-press, and it's my job to pay attention to that. 3) CL owner Ben Eason has publicly stated ... http://web.aan.org/creativeloafing_press/ If you read news on the web, you've no doubt noticed that newspapers appear to be split on the subject of embedding external web links in their stories. Some newspapers do it, most don't. I suspect that some folks have decided they don't want to do it, for whatever reason, but ... http://web.aan.org/using_links_in_stories/ 1. Register for NewsU's "Writing Headlines for the Web" webinar on Tuesday, July 31, 2007 with Eric Ulken and Mike Castelvecchi of the LATimes. $20 investment to drive audience engagement? I spend that much on sushi. 2. Check out OJR's piece "Hits, page views and other garbage we pass off ... http://web.aan.org/self_improvement_for_today/ Should your redesign include a social network? On the surface - an easy answer is yes. You can always make your site more useful to an individual by providing them a login and giving them personalized information. Extrapolate out from that - you can almost always figure out a way ... http://web.aan.org/social_networking_for_your_site/ Christine Tatum, SPJ president, opened a can of worms recently when she suggested a list of tech items that newsroom journalists should personally own: laptop, phone, audio recorder, camera, video camera, flash drive and microphone. Surprised at the ferocity of backlash she encountered, she wrote a blog post asking for ... http://web.aan.org/how_good_is_your_newsroom_tech/ Here's another Slideshare.net find - Andy Sernovitz, author of "Word of Mouth Marketing," has posted a short & comprehensible slideshow on how to use word of mouth marketing to increase your blog's popularity. This is all great advice for any alt-blogger looking to increase the audience of their paper's blog. ... http://web.aan.org/word_of_mouth_marketing_for_blogs/ I spent yesterday morning putting together Seven Days NOW (Notes on the Weekend), our weekly email newsletter. We started doing it in January. We send it out each Thursday afternoon, using email manager Constant Contact. How many of you out there are using e-newsletters to communicate with readers? There was a ... http://web.aan.org/email_newsletters/