editor on the verge

Recently, I’ve found myself thinking a lot about Ron Popeil. An American inventor, Popeil is responsible for such gadgets as the Chop-O-Matic, the Veg-O-Matic, Hair in a Can Spray and the Showtime Rotisserie Oven which he hocked on many late night infomercials. It was this last product that has been on my mind much of [...]

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How fast can you turn your ship?
When I look at many newspaper websites, I just can’t help but wonder why some stories are in a featured homepage slot and, even more so, why they remain there for so long.
I recognize that every market has it’s own issues and what is a popular story in say [...]

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Increasingly, on newspaper websites, I see “Most Viewed,” “Most popular” and “Most Linked” lists. Having my own blog, I know that these types of features can help increase the amount of time that people spend on a site and interlinking helps spread page rank throughout the site.
But as a visitor to these sites, the lists [...]

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Primaries and caucuses can be a traffic boon for newspaper websites. The days leading up to Election Day, the day of and even the days immediately thereafter can bring thousands and thousands of new unique visitors and possibly tens of thousands additional page views (and many, many, many more for larger papers).
While most newsrooms are [...]

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Does your site offer complete meals or just a tasting menu? The debate over partial versus full RSS feeds is far from new, but is just as relevant today. And as more newspapers, thankfully, offer RSS feeds, the issue is worth reexamining.
This is another topic where, I believe, the online practices of newspapers are in [...]

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