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Moving on, Moving up: ICM’s facelift

I’ll spare the clichés and just tell you that the ICM weblog is moving to a WordPress.com hosted blog. All of the content will be available on the new site, although links back to the blog may have broken in the migration and domain transfer.

WordPress (Photo credit: Adriano Gasparri)

For those interested in the details, our blog has been hosted since 2006 on a server at Vanderbilt University. The original installation was done by computer whiz Lee Clontz, with some help from Rob Pongsajapan along the way. The move to WordPress.com allows us to have a more stable host and support system.

The new blog (ICM 6.0?) is using Sight, a responsive WordPress theme with infinite scrolling (although with over 2,000 posts over the past six years, I wouldn’t recommend testing it). It should look fine on mobile and tablet platforms, as well as desktops.

One confusing factor: The domain name is in limbo until after the College Media Association New York Convention. I’ll be posting on the new instance of the blog at collegemediainnovation.wordpress.com, and this URL should be transfered soon.

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492313 Comments »2013-03-01+17%3A08%3A11Bryan+Murley

(Random #) things that summon my inner curmudgeon

10:34 am in blogging, General Media

I’m putting these things together because I see them all the time, and I just don’t have the energy to spend vast amounts of time crafting lengthy essays debating sloppy reporting, overly glowing predictions, and stupid social media strategies.

1. X is the most revolutionary thing since Y.

Exhibit A: Why Vine will be as revolutionary as Twitter

I am always skeptical of these types of articles. The truth is, nobody knows what will be as revolutionary as what came before it. There are people who have an evangelical belief that something is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But the Internet is littered with “Revolutionary product X” startups that quietly faded out, got bought out, or just never took off.

Twitter was fortunate because it was in the right place at the right time, among other things. So was Instagram. So was Facebook. Vine isn’t the first 6-second video app to come along. It just happens to be the one Twitter owns.

Of course, nobody gets called on the carpet when their predictions prove wrong, so it’s easy to make these hyperbolic claims.

2. I talked to three people, therefore I can make broad statements about a group of similar people.

Exhibit A: Journalism students still see value in print newspapers

Setting aside the fact that there are NO NON-PRINT newsPAPERS, the article references two journalism students and an authority (I suppose) from the University of Southern California. No statistics, no surveys – nothing but anecdotes, and thin anecdotes at that. The amount of pixels spilled on the “Future of Journalism” is voluminous. This type of fly-by article adds less than nothing to the available information.

3. Exhibit 3,235,234,234,o24 of the Streisand Effect, or why big companies are still not aware of all Internet traditions

Exhibit A: Applebee’s Overnight Social Media Meltdown

While it shouldn’t be a surprise that major corporations don’t understand The Streisand Effect – although they doubtless have teams of people who are supposed to “get” social media – it’s always instructive to see when one has a meltdown in the face of Internet commenters.

What’s so hard about “We screwed up, we admit it, and we’re moving forward trying to do our best”? And don’t argue your point with the combined outrage of thousands of Internet commenters. You won’t win, and you’re losing more customers by the comment.

4. You mean people use an app devoted to sharing about themselves to … share about their world? Welcome to the Internet!

Exhibit A: #Me: Instagram Narcissism and the Scourge of the Selfie

I have fun making jokes about Instagram and selfies as much as the next person. And I loved the Instagram/Nickelback parody (warning: auto-play video). But I’m a little tired of serious tone complaints about people being self-absorbed on social media. Here’s a clue: Most people are self-centered. That’s only a problem when their self-centeredness interrupts your own self-centeredness. Instagram selfies, photos of food and faux artistic filters are harmless. If you don’t like looking at them, use that finger to scroll on past, or unfollow the offending narcissist.

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, message boards, what have you, it’s all about communicating with other people. And most of that communication has a self-centered aspect. Human expression is, by definition, an attempt to express yourself.

Get over it or move to an island.

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The Aviso: 3 years online-only

8:31 am in College Media, Websites

This is a post that’s as much for my own record-keeping as anything. The Aviso (pronounced ah-vee-soh) at Malone University in Canton, Ohio, stopped publishing a print edition three years ago and they’ve been online-only since then.

I sat with two student editors during the critique sessions at the ACP/CMA Convention in Chicago and gave them some suggestions for improving their site. The one thing they definitely have going for them is that there’s not a legacy print edition hanging over their efforts to focus on web-first journalism. Even so, they were still in a weekly production mode. My main encouragement to them was to get out of that mindset.

The site is run on WordPress with a WooThemes theme. I also mentioned some tweaks to the site design, including checking about a responsive design version of their theme.

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Tags: college newspapers, online only, Website
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Hosting options for college media, the (updated) 2012 edition

11:05 am in College Media, Content Management Systems, Media Companies - College Related

It’s time for another trip through the fields of college media hosting options. There have been some changes over the summer, and some new providers who’ve come to our attention. As always, a disclaimer: This is not a “critical review” of the different options. Each option has its pros and cons, and every college media outlet has different needs and resources. If you want to know more about a particular option, contact the companies listed. I’d also encourage you to ask around at other college media outlets who are using these options.

I want to start off with the hosted options. All of these will cost money, usually a set-up fee (for training, design and database transfer) and then a monthly subscription fee (for maintenance, tech support and other costs of maintaining a server). The content management system (CMS) is hosted on server space provided by the company. The other side of that coin is that they do not necessarily exercise any control over the ad spaces on the site, or the ad revenue.

Hosted Options

College Publisher: College Publisher just announced a new version of CP5 called CollegePublisher Pro. Since the last round-up, College Media Network changed ownership and updated its revenue sharing model for advertising. They will charge if you don’t have a certain amount of traffic to your web site. And they also offer a server option where you can park your WordPress install.

GetSNWorks: This is the home of the Gryphon CMS, and is run out of the offices of the State News at Michigan State, where the CMS was originally developed. The web site is sparse at the moment, but there is an e-mail address to contact them for more information. SEE THIS POST for some of the backstory about this “new” entrant into the field. There is a monthly subscription, and a start-up cost.

TownNews: TownNews is the content management system company that runs the online sites for newspapers in the Lee Enterprises newspaper chain. The CMS itself is called Blox. It is a hosted solution. There is a one-time setup fee, and a monthly subscription. The subscription fee varies based on the size of the news outlet.

School Newspapers Online: SNO started out as a solution for scholastic (aka high school) newspaper sites, and has expanded into the college market rapidly since last I wrote about this topic. They now list 58 college newspapers as clients. They offer a hosted WordPress solution. The costs are spelled out on their site: $600 for first year (including set-up) and $300/year after that.

Ellington CMS: The Ellington CMS, originally created for the Lawrence Journal-World’s web offerings, is another hosted service. Its college media penetration is not sizable. The system is built on top of the Django web framework. Update: This summer, Ellington was sold to ePublishing. You can read about the change here and here.

From the comments on the previous post, here are a couple of other options. I have no personal interaction with these systems. The information provided is from their web sites:

Metro Publisher: “Metro Publisher comes with a suite of tools designed to empower any publisher or media company, regardless of size, to build a credible website and online business. By tapping into Metro Publisher’s intuitive software, you will gain a wider audience and your online revenue will grow exponentially!”

Block Electronic News Network: “The Block Electronic News Network (BENN) provides Smaller Market Newspapers with a no cost state-of-the-art online infrastructure designed specifically for local community websites, and to create non-print centric revenue. We share the revenue we bring to you, and you keep the revenue you generate.”

Creative Circle Media Solutions: “We are a unique consulting firm, drawing much of our talent from top working media professionals. We can put together a team of specialists to help you with a wide range of design, content, workflow, management, production, advertising or technical needs. The result is guaranteed – top quality training, management and design services.

Uncertain:

When I wrote about this topic in 2010, Alloy, an advertising and marketing company that aims at the college market, had started providing a hosting solution similar to what CoPress provided. The set-up was much like what you would find on any commercial hosting service, except they hoped to offer some added benefits to college media in the future (like an ad network, for instance). The basic cost was $250/mo. plus a set-up fee. I am not certain that they are still providing this service, and my e-mail asking for further information has received no response yet. I will update as information is available. That about covers the hosted solutions that are out there in the college media market. I know of a few college media outlets that have partnered with a local professional newspaper to host their sites. But that situation varies so widely that it’s probably not an option for the majority of news sites.

Host Your Own

The other option is to host your own content management system, whether using an off-campus server host, or an on-campus server. There are literally hundreds of hosting services out there, so I won’t even pretend to make a recommendation in that area. Most of them have a one-click install system for installing a variety of open-source software, for the less technically inclined. The most commonly used open-source (i.e., free) CMS’s are:

WordPress: This seems to be the most popular open source platform for college media outlets. It’s highly extendable, relatively easy to use admin area with lots of options, and a number of premium themes which break the traditional blog-style format. It’s based in php and (normally) MySQL database. There is an extensive community of developers to help out if you need technical support.

Drupal: My impression is that Drupal has more popularity among professional news outlets. It’s also based in PHP and an SQL database, but has a steeper learning curve than WordPress. One of the things that makes this system popular is its emphasis on community site engagement, which it had long before WordPress incorporated those features. It also has a very active development community. The site has a list of case studies of web sites built on the platform.

Joomla!: Joomla! is a robust CMS that comes at site management from a different perspective than WordPress or Drupal, and it seems to have heavier adoption in other commercial arenas. At one time, the CMA web site ran on Mambo, the previous version of Joomla! and it was relatively easy to run the basic admin templates.

Other

Finally, there is Django, which is a web framework and not specifically a CMS. Repeat, it’s not a CMS. It’s built on the Python programming language, and it is the framework that undergirds the Ellington CMS, for one. The framework is used to power a pretty impressive list of database-driven sites. It’s open source, but you’ll need a server space to host it

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Tags: College Publisher, Django, Gryphon, Joomla, SNWorks, townnews, Wordpress
46053 Comments »2012-09-28+16%3A05%3A46Bryan+Murley

Redesigns 2012: KSU Sentinel

12:29 pm in Redesigns, Websites

The Kennesaw State U. Sentinel redesigned their website recently. Taylor White writes in an e-mail that the Sentinel “previously used a standard WordPress template. The layout was created to match the new look of the printed paper–both designed by former website manager Chris Dailey.”

This really is a major redesign, as the old site had a “blog-like” look. The new design features large graphics, bold headlines, and a clear navigation structure in the left sidebar. The one thing I might suggest is moving the search bar to the top of the right ad sidebar. Web readers expect a search box at the top of the page somewhere.

Here’s the new site:

Here’s the old site:

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Tags: college newspapers, Redesigns
46351 Comment »Redesigns+2012%3A+KSU+Sentinel2012-09-18+17%3A29%3A27Bryan+Murley

BackToBasics: Linking

2:11 pm in Back to Basics

Editor’s note: As a new school year ramps up, I’m starting a series of posts highlighting some basic online journalism practices that reporters and editors should be adopting. This is the first in the series.

The most fundamental “thing” that makes the web what it is is not video, audio, fancy responsive design, or animated gifs. It’s the hyperlink. The hyperlink is what ties the web together. And yet this most basic element is something that news media have struggled with since the web was invented way back in the 1990s. They still struggle with it today.

So here are some basics of linking adapted from a presentation I gave to student journalists of the Daily Eastern News during staff training this week.

What is a link?

A hyperlink is a highlighted text in a web document that takes the user to another page or document located somewhere on the Internet. Links are frequently (although not always) denoted by blue underlined text, like this (not a link). What makes a link a link is a bit of HTML code behind those words.

Why do you link?

As a journalist on the web, there are several reasons why you should link to other web pages in your online stories. The most basic reason is this: You’re writing for the web, on the web. This is not paper. It’s a different medium.

Other reasons:

Continuity – Rarely does an issue or event arise ex nihilo. Chances are great that this issue or event has been covered before, in some detail, in your publication. Your online readers will benefit from easy access to some of the previous coverage of similar topics within your publication.
Context – As stories don’t arise from nothing, they also don’t occur in a vacuum. Linking allows a reporter to show what others are saying about the issue without adding meaningless additional verbiage to the story.
Credibility – Linking is a more advanced form of citing your sources. As an example, you can say “The university increased the budget by 3 percent” and actually provide readers with a place to find the source for that figure. Any time you are citing a document (a government report, budget, memo, tweet, press release, etc.), linking to a version of the actual document adds to your credibility. Theoretically, linking to these source documents will also help you avoid misquoting, mischaracterizing, or misconstruing these documents.
Community – In most communities, the newspaper isn’t the only source of information. When you read about something happening via someone’s Facebook page or blog or Twitter status, it’s the neighborly thing to do to mention where you got that information. There have been far too many instances where “real” journalists have lifted story ideas and stories from bloggers and community members without giving any credit to those sources. This builds bad blood with your audience. Nobody expects you to find out everything yourself. Share the credit when it’s deserved.

What should you link?

Past articles from your own web site
Government documents ( or any source source documents)
Web sites for artists, musicians, etc.
Explanatory background about hard to understand or obscure topics (science, economics, arts movements, etc.)
Similar articles around the web (other news outlets, blogs that might have broken news)
Controversial statements (source documents, like twitter, facebook, etc.)

How do you link?

Inline: This is the most familiar to web users. Linking with actual text within the story, so that “These Words” would take you to another page on the web.
Parenthetical: Some sites use this format, although it breaks the flow of the sentence a bit more. It is useful especially for non-html documents or files that might take a while to load (think PDFs or mp3s).
More info box: This takes links out of the stream of the article and puts them in a box, like an info box on a print story. Again, the problem here is that people on the web are used to ignoring content that isn’t in the flow of the content they’re consuming, so they might never notice your nice box of links.
End of article: This is the lazy way of adding links to a story. Copy and paste some URLs at the bottom of the story and add “For more information:” at the top of the list. I mention that it’s lazy, because a writer doesn’t really have to think about *how* the links fit with the rest of the article. But it’s also bad because most people are never going to reach the end of your article.

What you should not do:

I realize there are well-known – even highly respected – journalistic outlets that do this, but it’s bad practice. Don’t EVER link to a company or individual’s name and have that link lead to a collection of articles on your own web site. It’s dishonest linking. As a web user, when I see Google (notice, that’s a link), I expect that if I click on that link, I’m going to be taken to Google’s home page, not your internally computer-generated page of content. That’s the way the web is supposed to work. If you want to link to other articles about a company that your outlet has written, then that’s a good place for a parenthetical. For instance, I’ve written about WordPress numerous times. If I want to link to previous articles, I might write WordPress [link] (previous coverage) [internal link]. It’s not rocket science.

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45672 Comments »BackToBasics%3A+Linking2012-08-16+19%3A11%3A06Bryan+Murley

Redesigns 2012: Red & Black

1:30 pm in industry news, Redesigns, Websites

It’s mid-summer, and we’ve got our first redesign of the new school year. The Red & Black at UGA recently switched CMS’s from WordPress to TownNews.

Here’s the new front page:

and here’s their old design from 2010:

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Tags: Red & Black, Redesigns, townnews, Wordpress
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Time to move – things to consider when changing your website

11:28 am in industry news

When it comes to “moving” your website, normally that means changing what server the site actually resides on. In college media, “moving” is also tends to mean “let’s change everything how our website operates because there is some really cool stuff we just need right now dear Advisor and we MUST have this to do good journalism because, ya know it is the best thing since ~~Twitter~~ Pinterest!”

In college media, moving a website can mean actually moving what computer runs your website or changing what content management system (CMS) you use to run your site. Sometimes, it is both. In either case, moving a website is NEVER easy or simple. It can be frustrating and technically challenging as a college media organization while also crucial to your presence. Add a dollop of poor customer support or lack of student know-how and you may wish for the old letter press days. Read the rest of this entry →

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Web options for college publications, 2012 edition

10:29 am in College Media, Content Management Systems, Tech Talk, Websites

UPDATE JULY 2012: Detroit Softworks is no longer in business.

It’s been two years since I did a round-up of hosting options for college news sites. In the wake of the recent discussion of the Online Pacemaker Finalists, I figured it was time to take another trip around the field to see what’s out there.

And, a disclaimer: This is not a “critical review” of the different options. Each option has its pros and cons, and every college media outlet has different needs and resources. If you want to know more about a particular option, contact the companies listed. I’d also encourage you to ask around at other college media outlets who are using these options.