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CICM Interview: Ari Horowitz, CEO of Access Network

October 12, 2010 in College Media News, College Publisher, Interviews, Media Companies - College Related

Friday, Oct. 8, I interviewed Access Network CEO Ari Horowitz about the sale of College Media Network to a private investment firm (previous coverage here and here). During the interview, Horowitz discussed what the Access Network does currently, how CMN fits into their business strategy, and some of the technical and advertising challenges the network will be working on in the future.

The interview was conducted via Skype, and the edited version is about 13 minutes long.

For those who can’t see the Flash player, here’s a link to download the mp3.

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Redesigns 2010: Daily Northwestern

October 8, 2010 in Redesigns

The Daily Northwestern at Northwestern University in Illinois has redesigned their site. They are a College Publisher network client.

Here’s a screenshot of the new design:

dailynw2010

I do not have a more recent screenshot of the old design, but here is a screenshot from 2007:

dailynorthwestern2007Note the (now endangered species) left nav bar in the old design.

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CICM Interview: Rusty Lewis on sale of College Media Network

October 4, 2010 in College Media News, College Publisher, Interviews, Media Companies - College Related

As mentioned Friday, MTVu/MTV Networks sold College Media Network to a private investment firm last week.

Saturday afternoon, I interviewed CMN’s Rusty Lewis about the sale, and other related topics (like the College Publisher CMS). Below is the mp3 of the interview. It’s about 11 minutes long, and was conducted via Skype.

Here’s a link to the mp3 if the Flash player isn’t showing up.

I hope to find out more about the private investment firm and other details if I can arrange an interview with Access Network CEO Ari Horowitz soon.

Also, as of today, College Publisher sites (and collegepublisher.com) are still branded with MTVu/MTV Networks logos in the footer.

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College Media Network sold, under new management

October 1, 2010 in College Media News, College Publisher

accesslogo

UPDATE (Monday, 10-4-10): I spoke with Rusty Lewis from CMN this weekend, and will have audio of the interview up later today.

College Media Network, which provides an online content management system (College Publisher) to around 600 college news media outlets around the nation, has been sold by MTVu/MTV Networks.

In a blog post, CMN’s Rusty Lewis announced the sale:

College Media Network is trading hands from MTV Networks to The Access Network Company. While our ownership is changing, our staff is not. You can still count on the same names and faces you’ve relied on for more than five years. Our commitment and service to you remains unwavering.

However, the ownership situation is not quite so clear from the partner publication letter (PDF) sent out by MTVu’s Carlo DiMarco:

Starting today, Access Network Company, the leading online city guide content management software platform for premium brands, publishers, and local merchants, and the owner of BlackBook Media, will take over operations of College Media Network, which has been acquired by a private investment firm from mtvU.

I have e-mailed CMN to find out more information about the private investment firm, and hope to find out more about this deal in the coming days.

Here’s the official Access Network press release via PRNewsWire. Here’s the partner publication letter from Access Network CEO Ari Horowitz.

(via Vince Filak on CMA Listserv)

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Redesigns 2010: The New Hampshire

September 15, 2010 in Redesigns

The New Hampshire student newspaper at UNH recently redesigned their web site (hosted by College Publisher). Here’s the new design:

tnhonline2010

I don’t have a screen cap of their immediate past design, but here’s one from 2007 that I was able to dig out of the Internet Archive:

tnhonline2007

I think I’m about ready to declare the left nav bar an endangered species.

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New hosting options for college media

June 17, 2010 in Media Companies - College Related, Tech Talk, Websites

Way back in the dark ages of college online media (2006), I wrote a post outlining options for college news media to host their online presence. At that time, the options were very limited. There was College Publisher or some sort of host-your-own CMS set-up, the main variable being where the site was hosted: on-campus, on your servers, or on an off-campus hosting solution.

I won’t rehash what I wrote in that post, since most of it still applies, but I will point to four commercial options available to student media in the wake of the closing of CoPress last semester. These are companies that are aiming specifically at the college media market, not a standard commercial web hosting service.

Also, this post deals strictly with the hosting/server end of the web site equation. I am making no judgment as to the relative merits of various content management systems. Perhaps I’ll write more about that later.

I should also mention that the Daily Eastern News is in the process of updating our web site design, so I’ve been examining these options over the past couple of months.

collegepublisher College Publisher: College Publisher is the CMS/hosting system run by College Media Network, a division of MTV, which is owned by Viacom. It is the oldest, and by far the largest, player in the college media web hosting universe. College Publisher is on version 5, which is based on a CMS created by Polopoly (now a division of Atex). Unlike the other options listed here, CP is a “turnkey” solution. Student media sites are hosted on College Media Network servers, and technical support is provided by CMN. In exchange for hosting the site, CMN sells advertising in the top ad positions on each student media site. Student media outlets are able to sell other advertising spots as they are able.

New Options

amm-logo-masthead • Alloy Media + Marketing: Alloy is an advertising and marketing company that aims at the college market, and they are providing a hosting solution similar to what CoPress provided. The set-up is much like what you would find on any commercial hosting service, except they hope to offer some added benefits to college media in the future (like an ad network, for instance), and they will be offering more focused support for the service. The basic cost is $250/mo. plus a set-up fee. They are currently supporting WordPress installs. Here’s a PDF that explains some of the technical details. The Cal Poly Mustang Daily is one of their clients, switching from CoPress.

townnews • TownNews.com: TownNews.com is the content management system company that runs the online sites for newspapers in the Lee Enterprises newspaper chain (the Decatur Herald-Review in Illinois is one such newspaper). The company’s CMS is named Blox. It’s built on PHP, and hosted on the TownNews.com servers. It’s a drag-and-drop system that has some pretty sturdy features. However, you are limited in the number of design choices you can make to their templates at the moment. The Iowa State Daily and the Independent Florida Alligator both run on a TownNews.com system. The company is currently looking to expand into the college market, and I would encourage you to discuss the price with them. Like Alloy, they charge a one-time set-up fee and then a per-month fee. Paul Wilson was the salesperson who I spoke with about the system. If you’re interested, you may contact him at pwilson -at- townnews.com

dsw_logo• Detroit SoftWorks: Detroit SoftWorks has a CMS, Gryphon, that was originally created for the State News at Michigan State University. The company also integrates a web ad management system, a photo sales system, and a new housing guide system into a total online package. Costs of the DS system are: $250/mo. for weeklies (up to three publications per week); $375/mo. for dailies. Set-up charge is $1,500 for a basic set-up, with a $2,000 charge for data migration (which means someone switching from College Publisher would have to cough up $3,500 in start-up fees). Clients include The Grand Valley Lanthorn, the New Mexico Daily Lobo, and the Eastern Echo at Eastern Michigan University, among others.

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SMU Daily Campus redesigns site

January 26, 2010 in showcase, Websites

smudailycampusThe Daily Campus at Southern Methodist University launched a new design for their web site over winter break. The paper also upgraded to College Publisher 5. Editor Meredith Shamburger says the staff hopes to produce more multimedia and use the redesigned site to develop a web-first mentality.

If your student media outlet web site has undergone a facelift recently, drop me an e-mail, or a comment so we can make note of it here.

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More redesigns: IDS, Advance-Titan

September 8, 2009 in Websites

More on the redesign front:

idsnewsnew

The Indiana Daily Student has been updating their look this year. Adviser Melinda Aston says:

The IDS web site launched a preliminary redesign in February. We added more new stuff over the summer and launched them for the start of the fall semester. New updates include multimedia section, feature browse tool on front page, events calendar (Happenings), restaurant directory (Dining), classifieds sections rebuilt using the new styles. We’ve improved our integration of our blog and related content and are feeding the editors’ twitter content to the site.

idsinsidenew

We also worked all summer on a new site for our INSIDE magazine. It is a quarterly magazine with weekly online updates. It was published online as a flat html site, then in a Word Press blog template. The students redesigned it and we have migrated it over to use our main content management system. They update the main feature on the front page every few days to keep the content fresh between publications. They are still building the About the Magazine page.

advancetitannew

The Advance-Titan at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh updated with College Publisher 5 this semester (thanks to adviser Vince Filak for the tip). I don’t know if all of their photos are going to be as large as the one in the screen cap, but I have to say that’s the biggest dominant art I’ve seen of any of the redesigns I’ve looked at this semester.

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Three more college papers retool web sites

August 28, 2009 in Websites

Continuing to point out student media sites that have undergone major renovations over the summer. If your site has undergone a redesign you’d want to share with the world, drop an e-mail to scmurley-at-gmail.com. Include comments about how this redesign/new CMS will help your news organization accomplish its goals.

Washington U’s Student Life switched to WordPress over the summer, and also gussied up the design.

Director of New Media Sam Guzik explains:

Last year we were on CP5 and we made the switch to WP in mid-July. Our theme was designed in house by our web team; we still have a lot that we want to do with the section fronts, but for the most part we are liking how the site looks. Starting in about a week or so, the front page will be run off an in house plug-in for dropping and dragging slugs between the carousel and latest news sections.

In terms of workflow changes, we are transitioning toward getting more content into the system earlier in the night (as opposed to dropping it all in at the end of the night). Part of that transition is getting to a place where reporters file stories and copy editors make edits in a web based system. We also have an overview of some of our new site features at www.studlife.com/new-site.

University of Delaware’s The Review upgraded their web site to College Publisher 5, this summer, and added a facelift to the site as well. Editor-in-Chief Josh Shannon said the redesign is part of a new emphasis on immediacy for the paper.

We spent the summer redesigning the Web site to better reflect our renewed emphasis on breaking news and multimedia content. We pushed the latest news updates to the top of the page and added a multimedia center. We also added eight new staff blogs and incorporated our Twitter feed into the new site. The Review is a weekly paper, but the new Web site will allow us change our mindset and begin posting daily updates.

He also praised the assistance provided by College Media Network.

Much has been written about the drawbacks of College Publisher, but we couldn’t be happier with the assistance they provided, as well as the final product. CP has been with us every step of the process and even sent a representative down to Newark to train us on the new Web site. Not having a full-time tech staff, we wouldn’t have been able to make the new site what it is without CP. Learning the new system will take a little time, but the end result will be a dramatically improved browsing experience for our readers.

The Daily Toreador at Texas Tech University also redesigned their site this summer and launched a new version (via @collegepublish on Twitter). They are using CP5 as their platform. The top photo revolves through six different sections. You might also note there are 12 navigation items in the top nav, which seems a little much from a usability standpoint. But they aren’t using drop-down menus. Interesting choice.


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Ch-ch-changes happen over the summer for college news web sites

August 27, 2009 in College Publisher, Websites, Wordpress

Quite a few college publications made upgrades to their web sites over the summer. As I am able, I’ll post a link to sites with new designs or new backend systems. If your site has undergone a makeover, drop a line in the comments or via e-mail to scmurley-at-gmail.com, and I’ll post something as I hear.

Also, we’re always looking for additional voices to share their experiences about innovation. If you would like to write about what’s going on at your school (adviser or student journalist), let me know and we’ll talk. It’s a great way to connect with a larger community, and a chance to get your name out before your peers and industry leaders. (/end shameless promotion)

The Arbiter at Boise State switched from College Publisher to a WordPress installation to start the school year.

The Daily Tar Heel also moved to their own hosted site, using a custom-built version of Drupal. The Tar Heel had a tragic breaking news story – afraternity president was shot and killed by police – on the first day of classes, which tested their new web site.

The Arizona Daily Wildcat didn’t switch platforms – staying with College Publisher – but they did redesign their site and work on their news flow. Web Director Bryan Roy said, “we’ve completely overhauled and relaunched DailyWildcat.com this semester. Not only is it a fresh look with lots of extra features, we’ve also restructured our newsroom workflow. It was certainly a lot more overwhelming than originally anticipated (getting ads and business staffs on the same page) but obviously it’s a challenge all college newspapers are trying to solve.”

More to come …


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