Too many of the sites I visited looked as if they’re frozen in time or, at the very least, not working with any sense of urgency. When I tweeted my observation:

“Where’s the innovation? Where’s the experimentation? Don’t see most newspaper sites doing anything different or new. What happened?”

Steve Yelvington came back with this on-point response:

“Biggest risk of organizational (i.e., newsroom) convergence is a loss of imagination and innovative spirit.”

While I agree with his comment, I just don’t feel like any of these sites can afford to rest on their laurels or to be stuck in neutral. With marketing budgets at many newspapers shrinking or disappearing altogether, for the most part, it’s up to the individual web staffs to increase metrics such as page views, time or site and return visitors (for example).

What concerns me even more is that I’m not sure the people at any of these sites realize that they have a problem. On too many occasions I’ve heard the cliché “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”.

I once worked for a VP who said something along the lines of “if you’ve been doing it for the past 20 years, then it’s time to change what you’ve been doing.” With that in mind, I’ve got a suggestion for all the online staffers out there – consider this a low tech intervention. Take a piece of paper, or create a document and number the lines 1 through 10. Then, on each line, list something that you have done in the past three to six months at your site that you consider innovative or experimental.

For example:

1. Experimented with commenting
2. Incorporated user generated galleries
3. Staffed the site overnight, etc.

Now if you don’t want to do this brief exercise or if your list contains only one or two items, then I would suggest that you have a problem. I would even go so far as to predict that your site (barring the occasional Druge or Fark) is seeing traffic hold steady. While that might seem like a good thing, it really, really isn’t.

With print products struggling just to maintain their depleted numbers, online growth must occur and innovation and experimentation, I believe, is key to that growth.

Now before you run off and put floating eyeballs on your site, I would suggest first of all setting, at the very least, a monthly traffic goal. This will help you gauge the effectiveness of what you attempt and justify those changes or alterations to those you work with.

Once you have that done, try something. It doesn’t have to cost money even, as there is plenty of free tech that you can leverage. Want chats? Try CoveritLive. Want widgets that you can centrally update? Try SproutBuilder. The list goes on and on.

And as you go, share your successes and your stumbles. Just like we’re seeing more cooperation on the content side between news outlets, we need to see more cooperation on the tech side (more on this another time).

Now lets get down to innovating and experimenting and be sure to let me know how it goes.

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Bi-Co Boot Camp, September 13, 2008, By: Yoni Greenbaum ©2008

Thanks, Andrea for that introduction and thank you all for this opportunity to speak with you today.

Now some of you might laugh, especially since we just met, but the truth is I already owe you an apology. I know that may be hard to believe, but it actually gets worse, because not only do I owe you one but so do my colleagues at newspapers throughout the country.

As you all know the newspaper industry is in horrible shape. Circulation is declining, advertising is disappearing, revenue is shrinking, the news just isn’t good. But all of this didn’t just suddenly – happen. These problems didn’t just materialize overnight. Frankly, some of them didn’t have to occur at all.

Somewhere along the way we dropped the ball, we screwed the pooch, we lost sight of the goal line, hell, we just blew it.

As publishers, editors and department heads, many of us were arrogant, ignorant or just plain lazy. We thought that we knew what was best for our readers and, all too often, ignored their complaints, their requests, their suggestions and even their compliments. We thought we were immune to the economic problems that were sweeping the country and failed to adjust our spending and our budgets. We thought technology such as the Internet, Mobile and Digital Media were niches and not areas we needed to address. When it came to too many issues we were content to say not us. And, as a result, we individually and cumulatively allowed these problems to develop and grow.

And to make matters worse, reporters, copy editors and other employees sat by and watched. Sure they grumbled, they might have even complained to their co-workers, but too few took a stand, too few tried to do anything so they too share some of responsibility.

So while you might not hear it from the likes of Gary Pruitt or Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and I can’t promise anything for certain from my colleagues, let me, Yoni Greenbaum, apologize for everything that I did do and, more importantly, everything that I didn’t do. I am truly sorry, you deserved better.

Thanks. Thanks for letting me say that. I meant it, I am sorry. I am not however one of those who believe that as an industry we are doomed that our institutions are lost and that it is only a matter of time before I and thousands of others are out of work. Actually I think this is an extremely exciting time to be working in newspapers. And to be honest, I think that the answers we need will come from people like you. Not that I’m trying to put any pressure on you, but I really believe that you can save this industry and skills and drive that you will need you are getting by working at your campus publication.

I’m not kidding and I’m getting paid by Dave for saying that.

Throughout my career I’ve been fortunate to have worked at some great newspapers and to have learned from some really talented people. Sure those experiences have helped to shape the type of journalist that I am today. But you know, when I think about it, it was not the Pulitzer Prize-winning writers, the reporting abroad opportunities or the awards that have had the biggest, longest-lasting impact on me. Actually, the experience I find myself most often reflecting on was the years that I spent at my college newspaper.

See, in 1992 I was making my second go at college and was working at my campus’s newspaper. The Beacon at William Paterson University, one of New Jersey’s state schools, was, at the time, your typical student-run weekly newspaper. We had about a dozen students who served as editors, reporters and photographers and who handled ad sales, billing and receiving. Production was a cut and paste operation involving lots of razor blades and hot wax – I’ll skip the S&M jokes. We typically started assembling an issue at 5 p.m. and ended in the wee hours of the next morning at which point a staff member would drive the boards over to the printer and everyone would head over to the local diner for coffee and disco fries.

We were a passionate and dedicated bunch. A mix of stoners, skaters, geeks and outcasts. None of us were making any real money – certainly not the student government association which technically oversaw the operation of the paper. With very little guidance or support from our school we tried our best to improve and grow. We read the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal and dreamed of the big leagues. We looked at our local newspapers and said “if they could do it, why can’t we.” So we decided to evolve.

We used some of the money that was in our club account and purchased new computers, a server and best of all, a large format printer. Suddenly, production went from pasting together multiple pieces to hitting print. Instead of taking all night, production now took a few hours. We purchased newspaper boxes and placed them not just on campus, but in the surrounding communities. We created a media kit to get better advertising and redesigned the office, even going as far as to hire a receptionist. Suddenly we were feeling like a “real” weekly newspaper. Now in hindsight I’ll admit that the writing sucked and the layout was boring and for some of us, working at the paper was more of an excuse to miss class then to develop our journalism skills. But at that time, we thought we were cutting edge.

I remember at one point we tried to sell our newspaper to one of the local newspaper companies that at the time was owned by Dean Singleton, CEO of Media General. I know, we didn’t even technically own the newspaper to be able to sell it, but our thinking was that the daily could use it like their minor league team and as a result, how a steady flow of reporters, photographers and copy editors to hire upon graduation.

Long story short, the sale didn’t happen, but what I remember from those meetings is that we were paginated and they weren’t. We had new distribution boxes and a circulation strategy based on census data and they didn’t. At that moment, we sure as heck didn’t feel like your typical student newspaper. I think that experience made us all believe that we could do anything. So we tried many things and in the end some failed but others worked. We made money, actually a lot of money. We got taken seriously by the local press and, in the end I made connections that resulted in first job at a daily.

In the years that have passed since my college days, I have relied on that “do anything” or “try anything” spirit at each job I’ve had. It was behind my decision to try the Nextel two-way radios that enabled my staff to effectively report from ground zero when the cell networks went down; it provided me with the confidence to ask for cell cards and laptops longs before they were popular; and it gave me the guts to send reporters to a variety of locals including Baghdad right after the U.S. led invasion.

I share those examples with you knowing full well that they pale in comparison to what each of you would offer a newspaper or media company given the chance.

For example raise your hand if you send text messages.

As I thought.

Would you believe that I’ve encountered editors who won’t let their staff’s use text messaging because they don’t like it?

There are editors and publishers who still don’t have broadband Internet access in their homes; who don’t know how to setup voicemail and who can’t even open email attachments. And we wonder why they can’t get us out of the mess that we’re in.

But as I said previously, I don’t believe all is lost. There are newspaper companies where the staffs are fighting for a future. Places that “get it.” Places where people with your skills would be welcomed.

I think Philly.com is one of those places and, not just because I work there.

Before joining the philly.com team some six months ago, I had a choice, go back to the newsroom and lead the fight for survival or join an outfit that was taking an ambitious and decidedly different approach. Having always straddled the online and the print worlds I saw philly.com’s graying of that line as exciting, as a chance for me to combine my two passions and skill sets and, frankly, an opportunity for me to help create a model for the rest of the industry.

Philly.com is more then just a website for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. We are not, like you see at so many newspapers, an adjunct to the newsroom – a group of poorly dressed people sequestered in a corner of the newsroom or holed-up in a former janitor’s closet.

If anything, we are more dot com.

Our offices are not even in the same building as the two newspapers, but on the 35^th floor of a Center City building that features panoramic views. In moving to our new location, something that we did bout four months ago, we combined an operation that was stretched out among eight different floors. Now, content, tech, sales, and biz dev can all work together and that is important because our job, the job of philly.com is not to right wrongs or win awards, but to grow as a website and, most of all, to make money.

So, we consider anything. We don’t believe we have all the answers. We pay an ever increasing amount attention to our visitors and advertisers. We frequently ask them how we are doing and what can we do different, what can we do better?

All of our employees have a say. And by all I really mean all even interns. We explore new technologies and new approaches. We try something and if it works, we stick with it and if it doesn’t we move on.

Additionally, we believe in a personal touch. While you can look at the homepage of nytimes.com and washingtonpost.com and see lots of automated headline lists, at philly.com nearly everything that appears on our homepage is there because a member of my team has chosen it to be there.

And as part of that, metrics rule. At least every 30 minutes we are looking at our stats and seeing what is doing well, what is doing poorly. What is rising and what is falling. And we use that data along with our journalistic sense to then power our decisions.

In addition we’ve embraced video and not just news video. Philly.com now produces three daily shows and half a dozen weekly shows. Our videos are viewed nearly 300,000 times a month.

We’re launching new products including a new music site, a site for sports fans, others online products.

I think we have a good strategy. Our traffic is growing, this month alone we’re looking at more then 40 million page views and 4.2 million unique visitors and online revenue is up.

But the truth is we can’t do it alone. Those companies that are going to survive this period, including philly.com, who have embraced the Internet and who see technology as a salvation and not a distraction need individuals like yourselves. I hope you recognize how much we look forward to working with you. Ultimately, the future of our industry rests in your hands.

So please, don’t believe the naysayers and continue the fight to help newspapers survive and thrive. And check out philly.com and let me know what you think my email is on the site, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you.

I think you need to first decide whether or not you believe that enhancing your stories has value. Do you think it is important to present something more then just what you offer in your daily paper? If the answer to either question is no, then you can stop reading here and I wish you a pleasant day. If your answer is yes, then read on.

One suggestion is to essentially allow all your content to have outbound links attached to them. Not sure what I’m talking about? Try visiting the New York Times’s website and open a story. Double-click on any word and “a new window will open with a dictionary definition or encyclopedia entry.” This has nothing to do with the minions who work at the Times or the large stacks of cash that the newspaper spends on technology, rather, it’s via a third-party vendor. The Times, like CBS News, partners with Answers.com.

Answers.com was founded in 1999 by Bob Rosenschein. So what is it? Well,

Answers.com is an advertising-supported, free website. Since its launch in January 2005, it has become one of the leading information portals on the Internet. Answers.com’s collection of over four million answers is drawn from over 180 titles from brand-name publishers, original content created by Answers.com’s own editorial team, community-contributed articles from Wikipedia, and user-generated questions & answers from Answers.com’s industry-leading WikiAnswers. The site offers useful answers in categories like business, health, travel, technology, science, entertainment, arts, history and many more.

The Times, CBS News, blogs (like editor on the verge) and other sites are using Answers.com’s AnswerTips “small information bubbles that define any word when double-clicked without opening a new browser or following outbound links. AnswerTips deliver instant definitions, explanations and facts including biographies, tech terms, geography, pop culture and much more.”

Using this service on your site would allow you to offer outbound links without having to have a designated staffer research and complete them. I’m not necessarily endorsing Answers.com, if there’s another comparative service or another way to approach this issue, I’m all ears. I just believe your losing out if you simple do nothing.

Sadly, far too many newspapers continue to treat their websites as simply the online version of their printed papers. I thought that it was widely understood at this point that you will never grow your online audience if all your do is reprint only what is in your daily newspaper.

Take this story from The Journal News (Yonkers, NY) about the increasing frequency with which local police are arresting mothers who are driving while intoxicated.

“There has been an increase in the number of mothers arrested for driving while intoxicated with children in the car, said Bob Watson, supervising probation officer for Westchester County’s DWI enforcement unit. He said that more mothers than fathers are on probation for the offense.”

I would say that this is an important story that deserves attention. So lets look at how it was presented.

To begin with, the article comes in at 1,164 words or 31.45-inches (using the 37-words-per-column-inch equation). While that is not a huge story (a front-page New York Times story on presidential campaign fundraising comes in 600 words longer), it is not a quick read.

My immediate thought is that the story does needs subheads. During my initial read, I counted four places where subheads could have been used to help the reader navigate the story and to emphasize key points.

In addition to those two points, the story lacks any outbound links. I counted nearly a dozen instances where links to external sites could have enhanced the story including:

• Alcoholics Anonymous
• National Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence
• Westchester County Police

Perhaps even more important then outbound links, the story has no internal links. Given that the reporter cited about 10 recent cases, I would believe that the newspaper has written about more then just a few of them. And actually a look through their (paid) archives saw at least 20 links to just one of those cases.

And finally, along the same line, additional photos from previous stories.

I would argue that these suggestions only scratch the surface. An argument could have also been made, for example, for a video or audio-only interview(s) or even the inclusion of a poll.

Lohud is not alone, visit newspaper websites across the country, and you’ll find many similar examples of sites failing to engage readers. It’s a problem, I would offer, that has an easy fix. This is the type of issue that needs to be consciously built into the workflow, one possibility is to even make it the responsibility of one or a few people.

Don’t think that you can make all of the changes to add all the components I’ve suggested? Well, start by picking just one, perhaps previous stories and once you’ve got that a regular part of the process, add another.

No matter what you decide, don’t just offer the same old; that’s a mistake you might find you won’t be able to make for much longer.

Well, minus the jacket, pants and maybe denim overalls, the same description can also be applied to many newspaper websites.

Over the years many sites new content, features, sections and even navigation are added only to be pushed to the virtual back and forgotten. The situation is further complicated by staffing churns that strip newsrooms of institutional memory, so what is old is quickly forgotten. Approaches such as site audits or even Spring Cleanings aren’t commonly practiced. So everything just builds and builds and builds.

As a reader of these sites, I’ve come across special sections for three-year-old events, coverage of previous elections or long forgotten education issues. Seeing this type of outdated content causes me to question the reliability and quality of the entire site. While I understand that in theory online space is unlimited, that doesn’t mean that you never have to thrown anything away.

To help you avoid this problem, here are some ideas for avoiding online clutter:

• Create a sitemap for your website and update it often. This will allow you to keep track of what you have and where, on the site, it’s living.
• Use a calendar to note when new or special sections go live.
• Schedule periodic site audits (refer back to your calendar or sitemap) to review your site and discuss how to handle outdated content.

So those are a few suggestions from me, what are your approaches to dealing with this issue and when are you going to get rid of that Members Only jacket?

Newspaper reporters are used to readers writing letters to the editor complaining about or complementing their work. They know that their names can be raised at governmental meetings and even in other publications. But are they equally aware that their names may appear in online forums, chat rooms or elsewhere online?

Thanks to the growth of the Internet, it is not uncommon for people to discuss online what they’ve recently read. In addition to stumbling and digging stories, readers can post them to their Facebook or Myspace profiles as well as to dozens of other social bookmarking and sharing sites. So many place for a reporters name or writing to appear, that they might just lose track.

There are a couple of approaches to dealing with this issue:

Google Alerts

This is a topic that I’ve previously written. “Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.” So what you can do is create an individual alerts for all the permeations of your name. Additionally, you should create an alert for any username that you publicly use, such as your Facebook Myspace usernames.

Subscribe

Frequently when you leave a comment in an online forum or blog (you are reading forums and blogs and commenting when appropriate, right?), you can subscribe to receive further updates. Now while this won’t tell you if the conversation that you are having leaps to another forum or blog, but it will let you know how people are responding.

While those are both methods that will notify you by email of updates, there are other sites that you can check on your own, they include:

• BlogPulse
• Technorati
• Yahoo, MSN, Ask
  

Or you can subscribe to a service like Naymz, which has its own Reputation Monitor product.

This list is far from comprehensive, but it is enough to get you started. If you want to go deeper or learn more about this issue, try Googling phrases such as “Online reputation management” or “Online Reputation.” But at the very least, set-up the Google Alerts, it’ll only take you a few minutes, and then you can just sit back and reap the benefits.

Have another approach to monitoring your online reputation? Share it here.

Maybe it’s me, what I can’t get past is all the “Summary text. Summary text. Summary text” and “This article is of the test phylum” and “test image.” Oh, and I can’t forget my favorite, the dreaded “The page could not be found (404).” That’s right, the site is littered with dummy or boiler-plate text and broken links. And what makes it even worse, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Now I fully understand everything that goes into a relaunch, but really, I wish the Courier-Post would have taken the time before they threw the switch to make sure that everything was where it should be and that they had removed everything that should be removed.

As I’ve said before, this is no way to treat your readers. To me, and I think other Courier-Post readers, these issues smack of poor project management and poor quality control.

And what particularly bothers me, is that this did not have to happen. Even if Gannett had ordered the newspaper to go live with the site by a certain date, I would like to believe that they would prefer to be late and have a completed and working site then to be on time with this site. If I’m wrong, and they don’t mind these errors and mistakes permeating one of their sites then shame on them.

How do you ensure this doesn’t happen when you do a redesign? What advice do you have for other sites?