Save the Media

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Old-time ice harvesting.

It almost seems you can’t read a journo blog these days without finding a metaphor or simile about the state of the news business. The news business has been compared to lemmings, railroads and, of course, the horse and buggy.  (Read Nick Bergus’ post on the topic for an entertaining list of many such metaphorical comparisons.)

People, including me, seem to like these comparisons because they help us understand something new based on something we already get.

So I have two more to sling at you: ice harvesting and sewing machines.

The news business is like ice harvesting:

What is ice harvesting? In the old days before refrigeration was commonly in use, ice harvesters would cut huge blocks of ice from frozen lakes in cold regions and deliver the ice to residents’ homes, so they could keep perishables from spoiling. In Tully, N.Y., a community of roughly 800 people about 30 minutes from where I live, enthusiasts re-enact this old-time craft each winter as a way to remember the past.

So what? Well, in Alltop-founder Guy Kawasaki’s book “Reality Check,” he notes that ice harvesting essentially ended as a profession because other people with different skills brought electrical refrigeration to the home. Who would buy from the iceman after that? Kawasaki used ice harvesting as an example of what not to do. He was explaining how businesses need to reinvent themselves to serve the changing needs of their customers.

He wasn’t talking specifically about newspapers, but I think the comparison applies. Right now, newspapers are staffed with journalists who know how to write, edit, take picture, tell stories, just as the ice harvesting business employed people who knew how to cut ice, store it and deliver it all over and who had the equipment to do that.

Now, perhaps, ice harvesters could have forseen that their profession needed to change. Maybe they could have teamed up with those who applied the already invented concept of refrigeration and translated it into the modern fridge. But likely, they faced two problems:

• They couldn’t imagine a world different from the one that existed for them. So they couldn’t foresee a world without ice harvesters.
• They didn’t necessarily have the technical skills or education to apply refrigeration to home use.

The result: Most went out of business, and other people made lots of money keeping things cool inside people’s home.

What does this mean for newspapers? Essentially, the ice harvesting metaphor offers two lessons: To succeed reinventing your business, you must have vision for the future and skills to bring it about.

• Vision: I won’t beat this dead horse, but it’s pretty clear that the news business as a whole didn’t forsee or plan for the day when newspapers might not be the main way people got their news. Whether news executives didn’t see the Internet’s power coming or they ignored it or they didn’t understand it in a way doesn’t really mater. The fact is many in the news business were living in a reality where they couldn’t or wouldn’t imagine a world very different from the one at that time.
• Skills: Many newspapers don’t really have enough employees with the technical skills that are needed to transform the industry. For the news business to really reinvent itself, it needs workers who understand how to create online applications from scratch, how to take advantage of the benefits of open APIs, who understand how to write code and change programming on the fly. It’s understandable that news organizations employeed few people like this in the past. It didn’t need to. It needed people who knew how to cut ice, not invent home refrigerators.

The good news is: I think the news business can do this if it wants to. Journalists are generalists; much of the profession is built on writing about topics in which one is not necessarily an expert. It seems reasonable that journalists could learn more about the technical end of the computer than many of them they know now. Will they be Google engineers? Of course, not. Hopefully, as the news business adjusts to its new reality, it can both train its staff and hire people to supplement the technical understanding.

And, really, news organizations don’t have much of a choice if they want to survive. People don’t want the ice delivered to them in a horse-drawn truck anymore. They want it right in their kitchen, ready whenever they need it.

Coming next: What the news business can learn from sewing machines.

Like what you’re reading, subscribe

Generally, this blog is about tips and strategies and theories on how to save and transform journalism. Today, I’ll be departing a bit from that to share some big news.

Here I am on my last day of work in a newsroom.

I’m unemployed.

No. I didn’t get laid off as so many of my fellow journalists have in the past year. Thankfully, I was able to leave my 20-year career in newspapers of my own accord with an exciting (to me) plan for the future. I’m heading back to school to get my Ph.D. with plans to  become a professor.

• First: I will NOT be stopping this blog. So please continue to check Save the Media.

• Second: I’m not giving up on journalism. In fact, I’m even more committed to this industry I love.

Here’s the story:

About 10 years ago, I got my master’s degree in public communications at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. I had 10 years of newspapering under my belt, so I picked the “academic” master’s, really having no idea what that meant. I earned it part time, one class per semester over five years.

I come from a family where no one has a graduate degree. My immigrant grandparents didn’t make it past 8th grade.  So I really had no sense when I started my master’s what academic research was. Then I started, and through the influence of some really smart professors, I fell in love with thinking. It opened my ideas that you could have a job where you get to think and figure out and explain and make sense of things. Wow!

So I vowed, I’d return in a few years and get my Ph.D. Then I got married, had two kids. A few years turned into 10, and finally I decided: If I’m going to this, it’s now or never. I applied, got a fellowship and will start classes this fall at Syracuse.

It was a tough decision to leave a good job, mid-recession, mid-40s, mid-journalism implosion.   Walking out of my newspaper office for the last time Tuesday, tears streamed down my cheeks as I passed the hallway wall filled with newspaper front pages, some from more than a century ago. I felt lucky that I got to choose to leave, but sad as well.

I’ve worked at newspapers since, well, I started working. So it’s odd to me that suddenly I don’t. But I still consider myself a journalist — I’ll just be doing it a different way.

In many ways my years in newspapers and particularly the past few years blogging lead me to my new path. This blog has emphasized to me how much I love to teach. Really, what is this blog but a teaching tool.

Blogging about blogging and interaction and tapping into communities has made me yearn to understand the online world better. I want to study how people, particularly women, interact on the Web and what sense of community that brings them and to what extent this access gives them a voice they cannot get through more traditional media.

I realize I’m committing to journalism at a time when the field is in flux. By the time I’m finished with my program (three years), j-schools may have dried up and blown away like so much newsprint, and I’ll end up a highly educated fry girl at the local fast-food joint.

Or j-schools will transform themselves as I’m urging newspapers to do, and we’ll end up with a form of journalism that is more robust, more interactive and serves readers better than what we had before.

I’m hoping for the second scenario.

I’m excited about my next chapter. I’m eager to see how my new experiences will shape my thinking about the future of media. And I’m looking forward to sharing it with you.

(And, please, if you’re a journalism professor, keep me in mind. In three short years, I’ll need a job.)

Like what you’re reading, subscribe

Some short-takes of interesting stuff from around the blogosphere:

Then & Now: Scooping the News has started a useful series. Each week the site is evaluating five newspapers with circulations of more than 100,000 on how much their Web sites have innovated since five years ago. I think it’s an important exercise because as the site says “innovative newspapers attract online readers.” And in some cases, it’s heartening to see how far the Web sites have come.

Here is today’s evaluation, including the Baltimore Sun, which received a 16 out of 20 composite innovation score. Last week, the review included the Miami Herald, which earned a 17.

Not a new problem: I’ve known since I started in the journalism business 20 years ago that readership was declining. I lived to see the demise of many afternoon dailies, including the Herald Journal in my own Syracuse, NY. What I didn’t know is that these problems went back farther than I realized.

Former newspaper publisher and Neiman Journalism Lab blogger Martin Langeveld explains on the Retired Pastor Ruminates blog that newspaper circulation has been declining since just after World War II. In 1947, 132 newspapers were sold for every 100 households. By 2008, that had dropped to 42 newspapers for every 100 household. Wow!

Langeveld says TV, Cable and later the Internet contribute to this decline. But the main culprit, he says, is our nation’s “increasing prosperity and discretionary income (which) turned us into a nation of niche interests” that doesn’t need the  “common ground of a newspaper everyone in a community reads.” There is a lesson in this for all of us in journalism: Don’t hate the Internet for ruining newspapers; alter your product to meet your readers’ changing needs.

Must-reads: Danny Sanchez,  multimedia content manager at OrlandoSentinel.com, recommends five online media books, including “SEO for Dummies” on his blog, Journalistopia. He gives a brief blurb on each that made me want to get every book out of my local library this summer.

A bit of fun: Last week, I tweeted a link to SUNY Brockport journalism professor Marsha Ducey’s fun post about Paperboy, a video game from the 1980s. In case you missed the tweet, here’s a recap:  She offers a tongue-firmly-in-cheek recommendation that newspapers follow the example of the young paper deliverer in the game.

Her advice:  Get the news in your customers’ hands, celebrate your successes, above all — stay alive. It’s a fun read. Who can’t use that these days?

Like what you’re reading, subscribe

A colleague and friend, Darren Sanefski, has started a new design blog, called Blogging Gestalt Design, and he was asking for some advice on how to get started, what to do on his blog, how to get it noticed.

I thought I’d answer him in the form of a blog post because his questions are ones any new blogger or blogger/journalist would ask.

One note before I get started: Don’t feel like you need to do all this in one day. Don’t be overwhelmed. It’s a checklist, but the world won’t end if you spread it out over time.

You’ve started you blog … now what?

• Introduce yourself: I advocate a first post that explains who you are, why you are blogging, and what qualifies you to blog on that topic.  That may include your education or work history or interests, depending on your blog topic. Think of it this way: When you meet a new person, you explain a bit about yourself. You’re meeting your readers (or potential readers) in this post.

• Set up an “About Me” page: This should include your name (real ones, please) where you’re from (town or community; we don’t need your street address), why you’re blogging and what qualifies you to blog on this topic. Yes, this may seem to duplicate your introductory blog post. That’s OK. The way blogs work, that introductory post will soon fade from sight, but your “About Me” page will stay. My preference is to have a truncated about me blurb on the main blog page that links to a separate “About Me” page. This way you give every reader a taste of who you are, but those who want more can get it, without clogging up your front page.  Include a real picture.

• Contact me: Set up a separate page (blogging platforms such as Word Press or Blogger should allow you to do this) for contact information. Some platforms may allow this to come in a form that pops up and allows people to e-mail you. I’d advise setting up a free e-mail account through Google or Yahoo or your blogging host and using that just for your blog. That way you’re not giving the whole world your personal e-mail.

• Read other blogs in your niche: Early on, perhaps even before posting on item, I’d suggest reading blogs in your niche topic area. You want to know what’s out there, who is writing about your topic and what they are saying. Blogging is a conversation, so reading other blogs in your niche is a way to ease into the conversation without seeming like the dork who jumps in with the awkward aside. To find blogs in your niche, do a simple Google search for your topic. When you find a blog you like, click on the blogs in that person’s blog roll (the list of blogs usually on the right side of the blog.) When you reach one you  like, check out that person’s blogroll, and so on. I’d suggest setting up an RSS feed to the blogs you like through a service such as Google reader. Here’s how to set it up, and some more tips for finding blogs in your niche.

• Set up a blogroll: This is a list, usually on the right sidebar of your blog, of blogs that your read or like or recommend. It gives your readers a sense of what you find worthy in a blog, and it can help your blog get noticed. If someone lists me in his or her blogroll, I always check out his or her blog. (I find out because it comes up as an “incoming link” in the back end of my blog where I view the traffic stats.) By listing a blogger in your roll, he or she may check out your blog and even blog about your blog. But do be choosy with your blogroll. You want it to be blogs that you really value because you’re giving them a stamp of approval.

• Claim your blog in Technorati: Technorati is part search engine, part blog-ranking tool. If you join and “claim your blog,” you’ll end up on its list, so people can find you there. It also gives you a list of your “interactions” — the number of times other blogs link to your blog. The more interactions, the better because the assumption is your content must be good if lots of blogs are linking to it. Unique interactions (links from different blogs) is best, compared to a bunch of links from the same blog. (A higher number of unique interactions can boost how your blog indexes in Google searches, meaning how close to first it comes up in a search for a particular word. Claiming a blog is just a fancy way of saying you grant Technorati access to examine your blog for new content. It entails letting spiders crawl on your blog, which may sound odd, but don’t fret. They are virtual spiders.  Get more details on the benefits of claiming your blog and how to do it here.

• Join social media: If you’re not on social media yet, join. My favorites are Twitter and Facebook. Social media are a way to expand your readership, tap into the community of readers in your niche and give people a heads-up that you’re blogging. Here are specific tips on how to use Facebook and  Twitter to promote your blog. For whatever social media you use, be sure to set up a profile and include your blog link and bio information. Many people, including me, won’t follow folks on Twitter whose profile isn’t filled out. When you post on your blog, tweet a link to your that post. Post the link on Facebook. That way you’re bringing your news to the readership, rather than making them come to you. You’ll also want to friend or follow people interested in your topic. Here are ways to find liked-minded people to follow on Twitter. I’d also suggest putting a Twitter badge on your blog that displays your tweets in real time, and creating a blogroll of your social media links (Facebook, Linked In, etc.) if you’re open to connecting with people through them.

• Think SEO: SEO, or search-engine optimization, is a way to help your blog come up in search, such as a Google search. It’s a way of making a computer, which handles searches, understand what your blog is about, so your posts will show up when people put relevant keywords into a search. This means writing headlines that say what you mean, so a computer can understand them. (A computer won’t get clever stuff like puns or alliteration or irony.) This also means using keywords relevant to your topic in the headline and first graphs when possible. (Don’t go overboard; remember, you want humans to understand your blog, too.) If your blog is really about your keywords, using those words should come naturally. For example, my blog is about journalism, media, newspapers and news, so I tend to use those keywords a lot without much effort. More SEO tips.

• Start writing: If you haven’t started blogging, start now. Don’t wait until everything is perfect about your blog. Unless you have unlimited time to spend on it, your blog won’t be perfect — ever. It’s a work in progress. Improve as you go, learn, discover. Sure, read over posts, spell check them and watch for errors and clunky writing. But don’t obsess. It’s a blog post, not a novel.
• Link to other blogs: When you’re writing a post, link to other bloggers who are writing about your topic. Build on what they are saying, debate it, applaud it, expand on it. Linking to other blogs inserts you into the community of your niche, and bloggers whose blogs you link to will likely check out yours. If they like what they see, maybe they’ll link to one of your posts. Here are more tips on linking and getting inbound links. Remember: The more unique inbound links — that’s the number of different blogs linking to your blog — the higher your blog will index in Google. This is especially true if the blogs that link to yours  are quality blogs with a lot of unique inbound links of their own.
• Respond to comments: Once you get comments (and it may take a while — don’t sweat it), respond to them. Blogging is a conversation with your readers. It’s not broadcasting like TV or even newspapers. You say something; readers talk back; you respond and so on. If you respond to comments early and often, you’ll likely get more comments and deter the trolls who just aim to stir up trouble. More advice on responding to comments on your blog.
• Have fun: Blogging should be fun. Unless you end up some type of blogging rock star, you likely won’t make tons (or any) money. But it’s a great way to help figure out what you think and express it to the world (or at least a few dozens friends).  Don’t worry about traffic at first. When I started this blog in December, I was jumping up and down if I got 30 pages views a day. In time, page views grew. But the real value of blogging, at least to me, is connecting with other people and getting to “talk” with them about a topic I love.

Like what you’re reading, subscribe

If you’ve been on Twitter or pretty much anywhere online in the recent past , you’ve learned that Twitter has been playing a key role in allowing news about the contentious presidential election in Iran to be spread throughout the world.

What’s notable is many doing the reporting are regular folks, not journalists, and the act of using Twitter  is helping them circumvent Iranian government attempts to quash information.

Interest in the topic has been fierce. The hashtag #iranelection is the top trending topic right now on Twitter and has been for quite a while. Reading the tweets in real time is illustrates the power of filterless news.

The U.S. State Department evidently see all this tweeting about the election as valuable enough that it asked Twitter to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iran, according to a Reuters report.

It’s a pivotal moment for journalism, social media and the Web for sure. Across the blogosphere and in the mainstream press, it’s being called the “Twitter revolution.” Some notable observations:

• Patrick Thornton at Beat Blogging offers some insight into how this example shows the power of social media to allow dissemination of news even when a government does pretty much all it can to stop it.

• BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis calls it the API revolution, noting that “Twitter’s architecture — which enables anyone to create applications that call and feed into it — that makes it all but impervious from blocking by tyrants’ censors.”

• New York University professor Clay Shirky calls it “The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media.”

Sure, this is a triumph for Twitter. Hopefully, it will help naysayers realize that Twitter isn’t just about what you had for lunch that day. But it is so much more than that. It’s a triumph for the “new” journalism and all it can mean for how we cover our world. Here’s why:

• Role of citizen journalism: The Iranian government restricted journalists from “unauthorized” demonstrations, but it couldn’t stop nonjournalists from tweeting what they heard, knew, saw or felt about the election. To me, that’s a perfect example of citizen journalism at its finest. It’s reporting distilled to its barest essence. And without it, the world wouldn’t know what’s happening there in quite the same way. I’m not bothered that some reporting may end up to be incorrect or incomplete, as critics will surely point out if they haven’t already.  It’s an evolving story under harsh conditions. To me, tweets aren’t a final story; they are part of the process. And the need for the world to know what’s going on is so important that we cannot wait until we have the full story. Being part of the process pulls us all into the story.
• Serious news can be hot: This event shows that people can be interested in “serious” stories. Too often, I think, some in the mainstream press believe that the masses don’t want the “important stories”  — that they just want the fluff, the Paris Hilton piece, the “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ will they break up article, the dummed-down one-quote story. To me, the attention Twitter has brought to the Iran election brings me hope that people aren’t so shallow or stupid.  I realize that while this story was buzzing on Twitter that doesn’t mean it’s hot among the general public. But I’d also guess that a person who might not seek out a story on the Iranian election, might read a tweet about one that came to them on Twitter. It takes much less effort to click on a link that shows up in your Twitter stream than it does to follow an important story through more traditional methods, but just reading that tweet could sow the seeds of interest.
• Viewers help shape coverage: In a compelling and vocal way, people were able to let the mainstream press know that they wanted more coverage of this story. People on Twitter even blasted CNN over the weekend for its failure to cover the protests of Iranian citizens claiming ballot fraud, using the hashtag #cnnfail, writes Pete Cashmore at Mashable. And what’s even more notable: CNN listened and beefed up its coverage. Talk about power of the people and engaging and listening to the readers/viewers. Cashmore notes that the lesson here isn’t that new media beats old media. It’s that people want both: unfiltered information from new media and context and meaning from traditional news organizations. Sounds like a perfect marriage to me.

Like what you’re reading, subscribe

Time for some short-takes, thoughtful ideas from across the blogosphere:

Media companies of the future: Chris Brogan, a new media marketing consultant, came up with his idea of what the next media company would look like, starting from scratch. I like his ideas, especially:

• Everything is modular and linkable. Everything is fluid. Meaning, if I want the publication to be a business periodical, then I don’t want to have to read a piece about sports. (Similar to my hyperinterest idea.)
• Curators and editors rule, and creators aren’t necessarily on staff.
• Paper isn’t dead: it’s on demand.
• Collaboration rules. Why should I pick the next cover? Why should my picture of the car crash be the best?

Be sure to read his whole list as well as Globe and Mail communities editor Mathew Ingram’s take on Brogan’s ideas. (And kudos to Ingram for tipping me off to Brogan’s lsit.)

How to save newspapers: MediaShift Executive Editor Mark Glaser offers 10 steps to saving newspapers on the Knight Foundation-funded blog. It’s a list worth reading. His best points, in my opinion:

• Create a bottom-up organization where innovation is encouraged and rewarded at the edges. Use good ideas from anyone.
• Replace circulation, printing, print production staff with tech, SEO, community managers.
• Find out what the community wants in real face-to-face meetings, not focus groups. Then do what they want.
• Produce mapping and database projects. Employ or train hacker-journalists

Social media rules: More on the continuing saga of news organizations coming up with rules that suck all the social out of social media. (If you’re late to this topic, get up to speed on The New York Times’ and The Wall Street Journal’s ill-advised social media policies.) The latest culprit is Bloomberg News’ policy, which forbids staffers from communicating on social media about any topic covered by Bloomberg News, according to Gawker. Patrick Thornton at Beat Blogging offers some commentary and links to a better approach for journalists using social media.

Social media is just conversation: Social media won’t save journalism; it’s just a tool to help journalists connect with readers. But it’s also not such a mystery. It’s really just a virtual version of what normal human beings have been doing for centuries — talking to each other, getting to know one another, sharing ideas.  Dave Fleet, a marketing, communications professional, explains this well in his post, “There’s Nothing Magical About Social Media Principles.” He’s not writing for journalists, but I think his message has much for journalists who are over-thinking social media, fearing it or seeing it as complicated or cumbersome. His best takeaways: target your audience, tailor your approach and remember, you rise and fall on relationships.

First,  a personal note. Sorry, I haven’t been blogging for a while. I’ve been quite ill, with a suspected case of swine flu. (I say “suspected” because at least in my community, doctors are only giving the “swine flu” test to hospitalized patients, which, thankfully, I was not.) I am starting to feel better now. I have much to share with you. (One thing being sick is good for — lots of time to think.) Here goes.

Following is a list of my top five six blogging mistakes. I admit, I’ve made each of them, as I’ve learned “on the job” so the speak. I’m not judging here; just sharing what I’ve learned. I see these mistakes frequently on my jogs around the blogosphere. The list is important for journalist bloggers, but I think it makes sense for most other bloggers, too. If I’ve missed a mistake on your “top five” list, please share and post a comment.

Mystery blogger: I hate when I have to hunt around on a blog to find out who the blogger is. I don’t want to have to click on your Google profile or your FriendFeed link to find out who you are. Just tell me. Thanks. Every blog should have an “About Me” page to tell readers about the blogger. Even better: A place on the main page that explains who you are. (Regular readers will notice I’ve taken my own advice and added this to my blog.)

Fake names: I know it’s fun to come up with some neat pen name for your blogging career, but I’d suggest you use your real name. Why? It helps me believe you more. It enhances your credibility. And it enables me or other readers to verify who you are? Plus, I just lose a bit of respect for someone who feels comfortable sounding off on a subject without letting people know who he or she is. A real name also helps you brand yourself as your name, which will be increasingly important as journalism becomes more entrepreneurial. And, as Penelope Trunk at Brazen Careerist, points out: It’s easier to network online using your real name. (By the way, Penelope apparently also committed the “fake name” sin. Penelope isn’t her real name, and she explains why here.)

(Now, I know fake names are common in some blogging genres, such as moms who write about their kids. The nom de plume is meant to protect the children’s privacy, so the whole world won’t know “Oh, you’re the one who wasn’t potty trained until age 5.” That’s a bit of a different case in my mind than a journalistic blog, and I’m less troubled by fake names on truly personal blogs like these.)

But for just about everyone else, use your real name. And while you’re at it, use a real picture, too. I love those cartoon avatars as much as anyone, but a real picture is, well, really you.

No links: If you’re updating a post, please link to the background. If you’re writing about an issue covered elsewhere, link to stories or blog posts about that issue. If you use a technical or medical term I might not understand, link to a definition. If you mention an organization or agency, link to it, so I can easily find out more information. If you’re commenting on a buzz across the Twitterverse, link to the tweets. If other bloggers are writing about your topic, link to their posts.

When I read a blog post that ignores the Web’s ability to link, I just see it as a missed opportunity. Linking makes things easier for your readers, and it offers journalists many other benefits, including making their jobs easier, says Ryan Sholin, director of news innovation at Publish2, in a great list of why to link at Beat Blogging. Here’s my own philosophy on why journalists should link, including: It will encourage other blogs to link to your blog, which helps you index higher in Google.

There’s no there, there: If you love what I’ve written, and you copy my first graph, paste it on your blog and say, “Gina Chen has a great post” and then link to it, I’ll be eternally grateful because you’ve expanded my audience and you’ve added an inbound link that will help me index higher in Google. But I’d be even happier if you read what I wrote, thought about it, digested it, and then blogged about what you think of the issue and linked to my post for context. The best blogs, I think, add to the conversation, by adding value, by saying something. Disagree. Agree. Expand. Dispute. Debate. Compare.

There certainly is a place for aggregator blogs, which summarize posts and link to them. Jim Romenesko’s blog at Poynter Online aggregates thoughtful posts and news stories related to journalism, and it’s on my must-read list every day. But not every blog can do that as well and comprehensively as he does. Blogging is a conversation, so a blogger must say something to have someone else say something back. That’s what really makes it a dynamic medium.

No response to comments: You read a blog post and find it insightful, so you post a comment, adding to what the blogger said and expanding the idea. You come to the blog a few hours or even days later. Nothing. No response. Your comment hangs out there like a failed joke told at a party, but even worse because now there’s an online record of you virtually talking to yourself. I strongly believe bloggers should respond to comments on their blogs. Being a blogger is a bit like being a host: You need to keep the conversation flowing, engage the guests and make it clear to the flaming idiots that their ilk won’t be tolerated.

When you respond to comments, you’ll likely get more comments, create a more interesting site (sometimes the banter in the comments can be the best part of a blog) and forestall the development of ”comment ghettos,” where commenters just hurl barbs at each other. Plus, it’s one of the fun parts of blogging — to be able to “talk” to your readers in real time. Old Media New Tricks offers a comprehensive list of how to navigate responding to comments on your blog.

No contact form: The thing about blogs is, if you want to say something to the blogger, you can always post a comment (unless, of course, that feature is turned off, which it shouldn’t be.) But what if you want to say something a bit more general, that isn’t related to a post. Or you want to invite the blogger to do a guest blog or speak at a panel discussion. That’s why a “contact me” form is vital. It’s an easy way for readers to reach the blogger. Adding an e-mail address is also a good idea. You can get free e-mail address through Yahoo or Google, so there’s no excuse not to set one up just for your blog. That way you’re not giving the whole world your personal e-mail. You can always e-mail me at savethemedia@yahoo.com.

What’s your blogging pet peeve? Share it. Post a comment. (I promise I’ll answer you back.)

In my last post, I suggested the idea of hyperinterest — basically topic pages on newspaper Web sites that would aggregate and curate the best of the Web for readers. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this idea, and — in part prompted by your insightful comments — I’ve added some flesh to the bones of my ideas.

I’ll explain this by answering questions — some of which readers actually raised, and others which I came up with. (If you’re new to this blog, you’d be best to read the original post for background.)

Isn’t your idea just another search engine, like Yahoo? No. Absolutely not. I totally agree that newspapers aren’t going to come up with a better search engine, than say Google. My idea is to have a robust search on a newspaper’s Web site, but it would be searching only the content on that site — not the whole Web. Some of that content would be produced by the newspaper’s staff; some would be from elsewhere on the Web and aggregated by savvy reporters and editors.

So what is your idea? I envision a series of topic pages on news Web sites that deal with a variety of interests — from local news tailored to a specific community (the much-touted hyperlocal) to more avocation-oriented interests such as fly-fishing or kayaking. Reporters and/or editors would search the Web for the best stuff that should be part of these topic pages.

Pages might include links to existing virtual communities, Web pages, resources. Or they may contain a feed of local or wire news stories that tie into the topic of that page. The premise would be these topic pages give readers a wealth of information in one place about something in which they are highly interested.

How would people get to these pages? Several ways. First, I envision a Facebook-like question that greets readers in a big box when they enter the news Web site: What do you want to do? Readers could use a pull-down menu of options to navigate to particular topic page or type in their own ideas. They also could get to pages in traditional ways through links from the main Web page, Google searches, typing in a specific URL.

Why wouldn’t people just search for this stuff on their own through Google? Many would, but many people are still intimidated by the Web or don’t have the patience, knowledge, skill to do a search that yields the information they want.

An example might be helpful. Often readers call the newspaper where I work, The Post-Standard, to ask questions they could easily get from a Google search or even just thumbing through the phone book. When I worked on the City Desk, I fielded calls about everything from “What time is the Syracuse University Basketball game on TV?” to “Can you tell me the number of the local radio station?” There were moments, I’ll be honest, when this was  bit annoying.

But it’s a compliment, really. Readers, at least in a small-city community like mine, see the newspaper as the place that knows, the place with answers. Local newspapers should be proud readers see us that way and hope we never lose that trust.  The hyperinterest approach could help answer some of these questions for readers.

What’s the local aspect of your idea? I think hyperinterest won’t work  if it’s not local. When readers reach a topic page, they shouldn’t get a generic list of links. They should get a list curated by editors and reporters who know that community. They may link outside the paper’s Web site when it makes sense, but listings, calendars, resources would have a local priority. And, of course, a feed of  local stories relevant to a particular topic page would be a cornerstone of the idea. In this way, the site could do better than Google, which sometimes isn’t the best for searching for resources in smaller communities.

An example: A reader called me, looking to find Syracuse-area women who make and sell diaper cakes, decorative tiered cakes made out of diapers and often given as a gifts to new moms.  She had tried a Google search, but the most popular sites popped up first — not the ones in our relatively small community.  I asked my blog and print column readers for suggestions on local diaper-cake makers, and I got flooded with responses. I compiled a list and put it on my blog. Now, you can search for “diaper cakes in Central New York, ” and reach a list. That’s just the kind of aggregating I’d envision for a parenting or moms hyperinterest topic page.

Who would pick what topics to cover? I’d crowd source it. Start a blog, pitch the topic page idea and then ask readers to submit their ideas — and what each page would contain. Some of their ideas will fly; some won’t. Be flexible. Start with a few pages, and try it.  When readers see the pages, they likely will complain, “Why don’t you have a page about …” Don’t get defensive; ask them what that page should contain and create it. Fluidity is important. Some pages may morph into other ones, and you may realize after the fact that some topics need to be spun off into separate pages. Some may fail and should just die. That’s fine. Don’t expect it all to work at first. Innovation almost never does.

What role would social media play in this? A large role. Anthony Salveggi mentioned in the comments section of my original post the need to integrate Facebook and Twitter, etc., on these page. He explains: It  should “give readers a reason to consider the Web site a central hub by offering rails that contain particular Twitter and Facebook feeds, as well as the ability log in to their accounts from these locations.” Didn’t think of that, but totally agree.

A final note: All day today, I’ve been thinking about this idea and mulling it, and I decided to add one aspect. I think readers should be able to tailor what topics show on their own main page of the news Web site. I was thrilled to find Salveggi suggesting a similar idea in the comments.

The way I see it, I might pick “parenting,” “politics,” “food” and “education” to be on my main page; you might pick “sports,”  “politics,” “gaming” and “kayaking.” Why? I often find when I go to newspaper Web sites, I have to hunt around for the stuff I want. And if I got back, I have to hunt around again. This could eliminate some of the frustration.

I’d also suggest there’s a default option because some people wouldn’t want to go to the trouble of customizing. Plus, you can require that certain features — a breaking news blog; a list of most interactive stories — feeds into all pages.

Imagine a news Web site that’s a portal to everything people used to read in newspapers plus a bunch of things that newspapers were never able to provide. A cool idea, I think, but first it requires newspapers to embrace two provocative ideas:

1. The mass audience is dead.
2. The product of newspaper Web sites is not news.

No more mass audience

Radio lost the mass audience first when TV proliferated. Gone were the days when a large swathe of the American audience was listening to “Gunsmoke” or the “Avenger” on radio. TV started as a mass medium because there were few channels, so again, everybody seemed to watch “Laugh-In” or The Ed Sullivan Show.” But then as more and more TV networks started, people fell into niches. They could watch networks about just food or gardening or do-it-your-selfing or history. Few shows could garner the huge audiences of the past, but collectively, networks developed tight groups of devoted fans.

The same is happening now with the transition of newspapers to the Web. The old newspaper thinking was to reach a large, broad audience, which was often not highly invested in the news. That meant editors picked story topics that would appeal to the many, not the few. The Web, however, gives news organizations a chance to reach a lot of small but highly interested niches. New thinking is needed.

BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis called this the “mass of niches” in his recent book, “What Would Google Do?”

A colleague of mine, graphic artist Darren Sanefski, coined the word “hyperinterest” to explain how newspaper Web sites could cater to this “mass of niches” on the Web. He was playing on the term hyperlocal, which has come to mean a news Web site that is tailored specifically to a geographic area, such as a town, a city or even a neighborhood.

The thing is, people don’t always or only define themselves geographically. Some define themselves by their interests — skeet shooter, video gamer, foodie. Others define themselves by their needs — person in search of a baby sitter, newcomer to a community, job hunter. Still others define themselves by political interests, or personal agendas or avocation –  Democrat, tree hugger, soup kitchen volunteer. At different times, people may define themselves through any of these criteria or other ones, depending on what they need at that moment.

What if newspapers’ Web site helps these readers find what they wanted. To do that, news organizations must figure out what their product is.

What is a news organization’s product?

I’m guessing most in the newspaper industry think they sell news. I’d argue news was never the product even in the halcyon days when multiple newspapers competed in one city. In those days, newspapers delivered ads wrapped in news to readers. The product was really the ads, not the news.

Today, as newspapers try to transition to the Web, part of the product may still be ads. But part could be convenience.

Last week, I blogged about Tim Windsor’s question on the Nieman Journalism Lab blog about whether online news content is like bottled water. He asked how bottled water companies could essentially sell something most people in industrialized world can get for free. My answer: Bottled water companies aren’t selling the water; they’re selling convenience.

So what if newspaper Web sites offered convenience.  People read newspapers for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with news. Some like the coupons, the lottery numbers, the comics, the crossword puzzle. Anyone who has worked at a daily newspaper for any length of time knows that a quick way to elicit hundreds of angry phone calls is to repeat the same Jumble two days in a row.

A portal Web site

Imagine if a newspaper’s Web site didn’t look like a news Web site at all. Instead, when you entered the site, you faced a question: What do you want to do?  (I’m picturing it almost like Facebook’s “What’s on Your Mind?”)

You could pick from a pull-down  list of choices — find out the weather, read the top story, find the movie reviews, do a crossword puzzle, post a video game review, view today’s front page.

You’d also be able to type in what you wanted if none of the options met your needs. And you could bypass this search option, and navigate the site yourself if you desired. It would be like a typical news Web site search feature, but on steroids.

You also could still reach the site in traditional ways: through Google searches or by selecting from topical menus. But these menus wouldn’t mimic newspaper sections — features, sports, news. They would include a whole world of options.

The newspaper wouldn’t create all these options. It would link to them, creating this rich one-stop-shopping for everything a person in your community needs to make life easier.  Remember, we’re selling convenience.

A few examples of what I mean:

• A new at-home mom moves into the community, so she types in “find other moms” into the newspaper’s Web page search feature. She’s directed to a parenting topic page that includes a link to the Meetup.com list of moms groups for that locality; a list of recent parenting stories from the wires and that newspaper; a list of all the local moms’ groups.
• A crossword puzzle junkie can’t get his fix with just one a day in print. So he accesses the gaming portal on the newspaper’s Web site and reaches multiple puzzles to confound him plus chances to play Scrabble or Sudoku. The newspapers doesn’t create the games; it finds a way to curate them or link to them.
• A video gaming enthusiast wants to sound off on this great game she just played. She can reach not only a video gaming blog, which offers reviews from readers, staffers and others, but a portal to an already-existing video gaming community. Plus she’ll find aggregation of a variety of the best video-gaming blogs and sites from around the world.
• A member of the community happens onto the site and wants to know what’s the top story, based on what other readers’ think. He is connected to a list of stories that are getting the most comments as well as a list of stories that other readers have picked as the top reads in a Digg-like “most popular in last 24 hours” fashion. (A bit like the way it works on Times People at The New York Times.)

The news Web site becomes not just about news — but about everything. The news site isn’t selling news or ads; it’s selling convenience.  Gems on the Web site aren’t hidden but easy to reach. Depending on what the user clicks on, the site suggests other sites, links, blogs, news stories in much the same way that Amazon.com suggests books or videos or Facebook suggests “people you may know.”

All this would need a very robust search function, much more robust than I’ve found on many newspaper Web sites. But it’s possible.  I use Google like this all the time, by typing in questions of what I want. I usually get great results. (For example, I just typed “Where to find tax forms” into Google and reached more than 60 million results in .50 seconds, the first of which was the IRS tax forms.)

One final point: Each of these “hyperinterest” pages will have limited, but highly interested appeal. In other words, newspapers can’t expect huge traffic to each. The idea is to create highly interested small groups of readers. One thousand highly interested readers are better than 5,000 who care only a bit.

The impact is cumulative. In a way, it’s like saving money. The easy way to slash your budget is to stop paying your mortgage, likely your biggest expense. But then you’d lose your home. So the only realistic way to cut costs is to trim small amounts of many expenses.  In the end it adds up.

That’s how hyperinterest pages would work. Each might have a relatively small but growing following, but collectively they would contribute to a large readership. And because these readers are highly interested, they would spread the word about your site for free.  That’s just how it works on Twitter, where one friend tells two people, who tell two more people and so on.

Seems like it’s a good time for some short takes from my jaunts around the blogosphere. Here are some posts that I found interesting. Hope you will, too.

Is news like bottled water? Tim Windsor has a thought-provoking post at Nieman Journalism Lab today, noting that bottled-water producers know something newspapers do not: How to sell something people can often get for free. In much of the developed world, tap water is free and clean, yet people will shell out $6 or more for a bottle of water.  Windsor asks: Is online news content like gasoline, a “necessary commodity that people will begrudgingly pay for, because they have to” or bottled water, ”a necessary commodity that’s packaged in a way that finds a happy and willing customer base?”

A colleague and I tossed the idea around a bit this afternoon. How are water and news content different? The same? Are we buying bottled water because the product has been marketed to us as necessary. Or is there something else we’re buying? 

After some thought, here’s what we hit upon: We’re buying bottled water (and by we, I mean other people. I’m strictly anti-bottled water for environmental reasons) in part because of marketing. When I was growing up, we ran the tap. The only bottled water was pricey and snooty Perrier. So part is marketing; the consumer was persuaded that he or she “needed” bottled water, perhaps because it is perceived as  cleaner or healthier.

Some are buying it because their tap water stinks (literally, like sulphur or other minerals.) The water may be safe to drink , but it may not taste good.

We decided convenience, which Windsor mentions, is the main reason people buy bottled water. It’s a seemingly small convenience. But in today’s frantic world it looms larger. Consider me as I make the hurried dash from work to after-school program pickup to home to get my son ready for his Little League game. As a non-bottled-water drinker, I waste, say, a good three or four minutes hunting for a sports drink bottle that is clean and has a cap that fits and then filling it with ice and water for my son to tote to his game. It would be easier to grab an already-filled, chilled bottled from the fridge.

So could readers could be marketed to want to pay for news content on the Web? Perhaps, but I doubt it. The problem still comes back to why pay for what you’ve been getting for free. Imagine if bottled water were handed out free for years, and then someone decided to charge. It wouldn’t fly. (And that doesn’t mean news organizations should have charged for online content from the beginning. Some tried; it didn’t work.)

Back to the water analogy. If people are paying for convenience when they buy bottled water, charging for news content will only work if readers feel they are getting something else — not just news. Something they want desperately. Something that makes their lives easier the way grabbing a bottled water from the fridge does. But what that is, I don’t know. I wish I did.

Social media editor: So The New York Times has appointed a social media editor, Jennifer Preston. She jumped in with both feet, tweeting:  “How Should @nytimes be using Twitter?” Old Media New Tricks offers some smart strategies for Preston, including “Interact with your followers, and follow them. The Times account only follows Times employees right now and does not respond to followers.” Bravo.

How to use Twitter: Found a frank post today that spells out in “How to Use Twitter and Not be a Douchebag.” Good advice for journalists or anyone on Twitter. Best takeaway from blogger Adam Darowski:  ”It’s not all about you.If you’re going to get anything out of Twitter at all, you need to immediately check your ego at the door, listen to people, and build relationships. Talking about the things your or your company are doing will only get you anywhere once you’ve already joined the conversation.” One quibble, which I noted in a comment on Darowski’s blog: He’s not a fan of retweeting; I am.

Why to use social media: Kyle Lacy isn’t writing for newspapers with his dripping-with-sarcasm list of 10 reasons your business should not be on social media. But he could be. He makes the point that only a business that purchased a dial-up modem to “save money” would want to skip the benefits of social media. His best reason not to be on social media: “You find that building ‘trust’ in a marketplace is a waste of time.”