Excellent Reader Comment On “Make PressDemocrat.com Better, Pt 1″
Reader comment:
"You make some strong points. The Press Democrat has a long ways to go. And I'm not just saying that because you advocate for me to have a bigger presence in the publication. ;)
The one thing you left out was the need to improve our forums and comments. Right now the comments are often vile attacks against victims, professionals, and way too often minority groups. Very few tools have been given to online readers to help police the forums -- and they don't appear to be effective. In my opinion, our comment section in its current iteration drops the overall value of the online publication.
I'd also be interested in hearing you expand on your definition of "real blogs." Because while I don't have a blog, both Beck and Maiocco do. And Maiocco's blog drives HUGE traffic to the Web site. I don't have the exact numbers, but I think it's fair to say his blog contributes a double-digit percentage of traffic. That said, the blogs are fairly basic, text-oriented pages, with few options for us to expand on. What more would you like to see on the blogs?"
Originally posted as a comment by Nathan Halverson on BUZZYEAH using Disqus.
My reply:
"I was saving comments/forum suggestions for Pt 2, which can be found here: http://buzzyeah.com/2008/09/17/make-pressdemocr...
As for what I mean by "real blogs", I don't have a deep, philosophical Web 2.0 babble definition. The blogs just seem clunky like the main site. I guess they both have comments, blogrolls, and recent posts lists; and John Beck's links out of his posts. So, they meet the basics there. I'm just used to the feel and look of excellent blogging platforms like Wordpress. Blogs don't seem Internet friendly to me unless they're using a "real" blogging platform like Wordpress, etc. What platform do you guys use?
Do the PD blogs use the same site structure as the main site? Because if they do they aren't Google search friendly. You could probably get way better traffic flow for the blogs using the Wordpress platform."
I will be reblogging excellent reader comments from the "Make PressDemocrat.com Better" conversation. Get your comment on!
Make PressDemocrat.com Better, Pt 2: Improve Comments, Improve Conversations
If you read Pt 1, you'll know that I'm a lifelong Press Democrat reader and interested in making PressDemocrat.com better. In the post, I talked about four areas where PD.com could make their site more Internet friendly.
This post is going to look at a more defined area on PressDemocrat.com: Comments. I've heard plenty grumblings (here, here and here) about the conversations in the comments section on PD.com. If you improve the comments section, it should improve the conversations. Here are a few suggestions:
1) Location, location, location
2) Timely conversation
3) Community moderation, including voting and flagging
4) Etiquette, moderation rules up front and center
5) Reader profiles (i.e. accountability)
Now with more explanation:
1) Location, location, location
On all online PD articles, you'll find a comment section that shows the ten most recent comments the article has received. However, readers don't leave comments on the article's page, instead they have to click "Post a comment | View all comments" and transport over to a forum discussion page for the particular article. The forum discussion page let's readers add they're own comment or read all the comments beyond the ten most recent.
I think this is a huge no-no since it quickly sets a negative tone. When you put commenters in a dark, dirty section of town with no police patrol, road maintenance, etc, the dark, dirty section gets darker and dirtier.
Site comments Forum comments
2) Timely conversation
PressDemocrat.com pulls its articles from its print edition, The Press Democrat newspaper. Newspapers are timely. You have a whole bunch writers, reporters, editors, etc, working around deadlines to get content off to the press in an extremely timely manner.
Reader commenting should also be timely. What do I mean? Commenting on specific online article should be open for 1-2 weeks and than closed. This will help comments be on the same time wave-length as the news article, which, in turn, helps keep comments on-topic.
3) Community moderation (voting and flagging)
I don't see Press Democrat writers rolling up their sleeves and participating or moderating reader comments. I'm pretty sure most of them sneer at reader comments polluting their peerless journalism.
So, how do you moderate comments so that you get smarter, more on-topic comments? Easy. Let the community moderate. All you have to do is provide readers with an up arrow and down arrow (a la Disqus commenting system) and readers can click the down arrow for off-topic/inappropriate comments and the up arrow for conversation improving comments.
Ok, but how does clicking an arrow moderate comments? Let me explain. You can set a commenting system, like Disqus, to filter out all comments with -5 points or whatever negative number you choose. This means when five people click the down arrow the comment would be filtered out. Or, you can setup Disqus to show the highest rated comments at the top of the comment thread and the lowest rated comments at the bottow of the comment thread.
Also, some commenting systems allow you to simply "flag" a comment for an official moderator to review instead of letting the community readers vote comments up or down.
4) Etiquette, moderation rules up front and center
All the big sites have to deal with comment trolls leaving hateful, spammy, and/or inappropriate comments. This is why you need to put your site's commenting etiquette and moderation rules up front and center. It lets your community know the rules. This does two things: 1) Makes your future moderating clear and understood and 2) Empowers your reader community to self-moderate like Wikipedia (that is, if they have voting and flagging tools).
It makes it a whole lot easier to deal with angry trolls after their comment has been removed if all you have to do is point to up-front-and-center moderation rules. It's even easier if you let community readers moderate off the same up-front-and-center moderation rules. Think about it.
5) Reader profiles (i.e. accountability)
Reader profiles tie everything together. They provide accountability by showing all comments the reader has left on articles. They allow the user to build positive commenting reputation (especially if you're using Disqus' points-based user profiles).
Reader profiles can also tie other things the reader does on the Internet like their blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc, to their profile. I think this is extremely important as it adds an extra layer of accountability to a profile. So, instead of requiring info for advertising optimizing, PressDemocrat.com should ask new commenters if they want to add their Facebook or blog to their profile. Optional, of course.
This is the current required info when new commenters create a PD.com profile in all its advertising-optimizing glory:
I'm really trying to start a strong conversation here to "Make PressDemocrat.com Better" so feel free to use the Save/Share button below to share with friends, etc.
If you'd like to contact me, shoot me an email at andrew@buzzyeah.com. Or, feel free to leave a comment below (I'll be reblogging awesome comments).
Make PressDemocrat.com Better, Pt 1: Internet Friendly
I've been a lifelong reader of Sonoma County's Press Democrat newspaper. Still remember waking up before school and following PD coverage of the Polly Klaas case when I was 9 years old.
Nowadays I read my newspaper online. NYT, WaPost, WSJ, etc. I don't have a subscription to a single print newspaper. This means that I also read the Press Democrat online, too.
The trouble is that the PressDemocrat.com seems to be an afterthought. It doesn't feel to be born of the web. It's stiff and clunky. It feels as if the print articles were copy-and-pasted to PD.com since it's 2008 and "you got to be online".
For instance, my mom will email me that I need to read a specific PD article in "today's paper". So, I'll jump online and browse the PD.com headlines and use the site's search feature to find the article. But, I usually come up empty-handed. That is until I jump over to Google and do an extreme search function like:
site:http://www.pressdemocrat.com "car crash in Windsor"
Anyways, my point is that PressDemocrat.com needs to become more Internet friendly. How do they do this? Here are a couple of suggestions:
1) Clean, granular RSS feeds
2) Better navigation
3) Blogs
4) Beta.pressdemocrat.com
Now with more explanation:
1) Clean, granular RSS feeds
RSS feeds are very important, especially ones with full articles and unbroken links (my Google homepage PD widget feed is always stale). Allow me to track the specific news section on PD.com that I really like. Yes, I know that PressDemocrat.com currently has RSS feeds, but they aren't clean and they aren't granular enough. Right now, PD.com has five RSS options. There should be way more (i.e. RSS feeds for public notices, CA news, SR-only news).
2) Better navigation
The homepage is a mess. PD.com mixes national and local news. It has too much white space, too many font changes, and too many photos with different shapes and sizes. It's highly un-scannable and seems like a jumbled mess that doesn't have rhyme or reason. Take a cue from a massive yet simple news site like CNN.com. Seriously, I can scan CNN.com fast and understand its navigation on first visit.
PressDemocrat.com homepage CNN.com homepage
3) Blogs
Blogs are truly born of the web. They're form, style, and immediacy are all things that PD.com could use more of. They should give Matt Maiocco (49ers), John Beck (Pop Culture), and Nathan Halverson (Technology, Biz) real blogs. Real blogs create better conversations, traffic, community, etc, which all lead to a successful web property.
4) Beta.pressdemocrat.com
Messing around with your site is always a scary thought. So, why not create an experimental playground at a subdomain like beta.pressdemocrat.com? Think about it.
I will continue to spit posts like these as I've been thinking about how to make PressDemocrat.com better a lot lately. Feel free to email me at andrew@buzzyeah.com with ideas, etc.
Choice Links From My Twitter Account
Here is a wad of interesting links I shared via my @andrwmyr Twitter account over the past few weeks. Enjoy.
Bobcats squat foreclosed home in Lake Elsinore. http://bit.ly/2WiyvB @pichot Probably already found O'Reilly's Obama interview, but here's a link: http://bit.ly/oreilly @paperwords Your Carl Malamud article is on Techmeme: http://bit.ly/4pvX09. You should write a real blog for PressDemo. @andrwmyr will blindly hype anything TVOTR creates (even before he's done listening to new leaked song): http://bit.ly/tvotr The new SoCo Sheriff's website looks great: http://sonomasheriff.org. Nice work, @mikeshelby. Thx for heads up, @lauranorton. Tiger Woods, Karl Lagerfeld, Giorgio Armani, Brad Pitt, etc, building hotels/golf courses in Dubai. What housing slump? http://bit.ly/XFJgk Trying 2 follow @graygoose an open source cyber warfare project to figure out cyberstrikes on Georgia. http://tinyurl.com/5f7ggj
A Comment Reblogged
Blog commenting system Disqus introduced Disqus 2.0 a couple of weeks ago. And, I left the following comment on their post announcing the updgrade:
Now, what if you gave commenters the option to simultaneously post their comment to their own blog as a blog post. Whoa... that would blow my mind.
Originally posted as a comment by Andrew Meyer on DISQUS Blog using Disqus.
Little did I know that Disqus was about to release a reblogging comments feature. Disqus announced the feature as a comment on Fred Wilson's blog that they immediately reblogged to their own blog.
How does it work? Just click "reblog" on any Disqus comment and you can post the comment to your own blog. Is a reblogging comments feature beneficial? Who knows. We'll see.
Three Well-Designed Products I Recently Purchased That Make Me Happy
Lately, when I'm getting ready to purchase a product I do three things: 1) Research, 2) Get friend advice (i.e. via Twitter (here) or blog post (comments here)), and 3) Price compare.
These are three amazing products that made the cut and make me extremely happy:
1) Fitness ball
This is my new office chair. Great for my back and core, and keeps my blood circulating in my legs. I highly suggest swapping out your normal office chair for one of these (at least for a couple hours a day). Grabbed mine at Sports Authority.
2) Omop by Method
Almost bought a Swiffer, but smart people gave me the tipoff on the Method Omop. It is a simple, effective work of art. Just velcro on the Method mop pad, squirt some great-smelling Method floor cleaner around, and your off to the races. Everything you need comes in the Omop kit. You can order online or get one at Target.
3) Jawbone 2
It's California law to use a hands-free device while driving. This law led me to join the cyborg Bluetooth-headset nation. Everyone I know that's in the know raves about the Jawbone, so I didn't have to do much research outside of price comparing stores.
The Jawbone 2 is super simple to use and it's noise-eliminating technology is wonderful. I have an iPhone, which is notorious for its low earpiece volume. However, when I use the Jawbone it completely erases this iPhone weakness.
It still makes you look like a cyborg when wearing it, so I only wear it in the car for calls, or when I'm alone in my apartment surfing the Internet while pretending to be interested by a caller's conversation.
You can get when online, or at your mobile carriers local store (most likely).
Forget Oprah’s Book Club, Jon Stewart Tells Me What To Read
If The Daily Show put Amazon links on their Hulu videos they would make some serious affiliate money. Why? Because five out of the twenty-nine books in my Amazon book wishlist were added immediately after watching guests promote their books on The Daily Show, which I watch on Hulu.
The Daily Show bump, much like the "Colbert bump", is no joke. 5 out of 29 books. 17%. Yes, 17% of the books in my Amazon wishlist were added after watching guests promote their books on Jon's show. What can I say, Jon has some very interesting guests with must-read books.
Books I added to my Amazon wishlist after watching The Daily Show on Hulu:
Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China by Philip P. Pan
Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders by Jason L. Riley
When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business by James Harding
The Future of The Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain
And, if Amazon links aren't added to The Daily Show's Hulu videos than The Daily Show should at least add them to videos on their own website.
Sonoma County Companies Using Twitter
There are some really interesting homegrown companies in Sonoma County, CA. Most of them are small and don't have huge PR/advertising departments. But, this shouldn't stop them from getting out the word to the local community on company news and/or cool events they're doing.
Enter Twitter. It's a super easy and effective way to quickly broadcast in 140-words-or-less blurbs what your homegrown Sonoma County company is up to. And, your customers, the local Sonoma County community, can easily follow your Twitter updates on one page.
For instance, Copperfield's Books could Twitter about upcoming book readings, Wells Fargo Center for the Arts could Twitter about upcoming concerts, Windsor High School could Twitter about upcoming football games, or Flying Goat Coffee could Twitter about getting new Clover coffee machines.
Sonoma County companies and organizations using Twitter:
Capozzi Winery: @pinotblogger
O'Reilly Media: @oreillymedia
Sonic.net: @sonicnet, @sonicnet_status (status updates)
SRJC Library: @srjclibrary
Sonoma County Sheriff's Dept: @sonomasheriff
I'll update the list as more Sonoma County companies and organizations start using Twitter. If you know of one I'm missing let me know in the comments.
@paperwords, a Press Democrat writer using Twitter, also wrote a good article on Sonoma County companies using Twitter (including some of the companies mentioned above).
Press Democrat Writers Using Twitter
My local newspaper is The Press Democrat. It covers news from Santa Rosa and Sonoma County, CA.
Press Democrat Writers using Twitter:
I'll update the list if more Press Democrat writers start using Twitter. Also, it would be cool if PressDemocrat.com started using Twitter accounts for hyperlocal news sections (not NYT syndication articles).
This post was inspired by Twitter Blog's recent post detailing how The New York Times and its writers are using Twitter.
Kiva’s Addictive Cycle: Invest, Repaid, Reinvest
On July 22, I got an email from Kiva saying, "...your loan to Karimbayli Mammadov
has been fully repaid...."
Who is Karimbayli? He's the 50 year old welder from Azerbaijan that I loaned money to about a year ago (see this post and this post). You can check out his business page on Kiva here.
I'm glad Karimbayli was able to repay his loan. It means his business is sustaining and, hopefully, growing. So, what am I going to do now that Karimbayli has repaid me the $25 that I lended to his total $1000 loan. I'm going to reinvest in another entrepreneur. Of course.
Last time, I invested in one of the least loaned to demographics: "Male", "Eastern Europe", "manufacturing". This time I'm going to reinvest the $25 in a completely different demographic: "Female", "Middle East", "retail".
And, the entrepreneur I chose is Joumana.
Here's her profile blurb on Kiva:
Joumana, 30 years old, is single and lives in Tripoli in the north of Lebanon.
Joumana's enthusiasm and willpower allowed her to defy the community as she opened a shop to sell painting materials, a business traditionally managed by men. She requests a loan of $1,200 so she can purchase more goods to sell. This will allow her to attract more clients by offering them a larger variety of products.
Joumana has been a micro-credit client of Al Majmoua for the past 4 years. She has always repaid her debts on time.
Are you caught in Kiva's addictive cycle? Holler your Kiva profile page in the comments. Find my lender page here.
I pretend to have a real job, by which I mean started my own company. 
