Hurricane Ike Media Review: KHOU.com
September 15, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
Among the Houston based local media scene, KHOU is a solid contender and very popular station. Like the other local network affiliates they had “wall to wall” coverage on-air and online. Their broadcast transmission was also being streamed live online.
I do want to preface each of these reviews with the web technology or content management system (CMS) these media outlets are using.
The CMS decision a media outlet chooses (often a business decision more than a content decision unfortunatey) has a great effect on what they’re able to do without trying extra hard and breaking out of the confines of the particular system they’re using.
KHOU.com is a Belo station, using a custom built CMS common to Belo owned television stations.
KHOU unfortunately had one of the least informative web sites of the Houston market. Their site was predominently weather based, very important information during a hurricane no doubt! However, after the storm passed through their area it seems no changes were made.
What I’m seeing across most of the media web sites in Houston is that shortly after 11 am Saturday morning they switched gears from weather related focuses to breaking news mode, presenting information on recovery and rebuilding.
As of Sunday afternoon KHOU was still predominantly showing weather information on their web site, with news updates further down the page.
The Good:
- Weather maps and information very clear and easy to read, constantly updated
- A Blog with updates being sent very quickly. They were writing short, concise updates quite often. This is what emergency based news should be. The screenshot below shows the blog at one point Sunday afternoon.
The Bad
- Very little user interaction, comments were open on the blog but the barrier to entry was too high. The blog was not linked prominently on the homepage and it took me several minutes to find.
- KHOU was taking advantage of a PHPbb discussion board. These boards were getting fairly consistent traffic and served their purpose of creating conversations. One problem I encountered was that the boards required registration, however the links to the registration form was buried at the bottom of the page. Also, the system would let me get so far as to hit Submit for a comment before giving me an error saying I had to be registered.
- User generated content was minimal and hard to find throughout the site. There were solicitations to send in photos and videos on the KHOU homepage, however it was not
- The station’s official Twitter stream was a purely one-way road, the opposite of the spirit of Twitter and online conversation. KHOU was simply automatically piping in the latest headline from their site. They did not have any profile information entered, and had no avatar (profile image)
Overall, it’s unfortunate that that user experience around Hurricane Ike on this particular web site was so poor.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
As social-media spreads and becomes even more ubiquitous you need the tools to manage and control your personal identity and reputation online. Use the the following 10 steps to enhance your toolset.
- Buy yourname.com Even if you don’t plan to start a blog or build a web site immediately, you should own your own domain. Having a single point on the web for authoritative information about yourself is key to managing your online identity. I recommend buying domains from GoDaddy (it’s only $8 a year!)
- Set up Google Alerts for your name.
- Google your name (or for a more proactive approach, set up a Google Alert for your name)
- Make a list of all the places where you have content on the web, discussion boards, chat rooms, blogs, news websites, comments, etc. All of this content is traceable back to you, make sure it reflects your online identity goals.
- Decide what social-networking sites you are going to spend more time on than others, also look at what an appropriate amount of conversation and information is acceptable at each site.
- Monitor what images, messages, and spam are hitting your social-networking site profile pages. Have a MySpace? Delete the spam from your wall. Have Facebook? Untag yourself from questionable photographs or ask the poster to take them down. And certainly if you have photos or messages in any of your social-networking sites that don’t fit well with your online identity goals, take them down or delete them.
- Don’t delete your social networking accounts! Having a presence on the web isn’t a bad thing, just make sure that the information available puts you in a positive light.
- Read and comment on blogs. This should probably be higher up in my list, but participating in the numerous conversations happening at any given moment is a huge opportunity to meet new people, gain knowledge, and share knowledge which is what social-media is all about.
- Give back what you take in. If you learn something online, spread it around. Share the love, both in the form of links, emails, instant messages, etc. If you appreciate what someone is doing let them know.
- Each of us has our own set of skills and knowledge, you know things that others don’t. It isn’t difficult to reach out and connect with others who have similar knowledge, or who know more than you. Find those people and connect with them. Social media isn’t social without you.
Managing your online identity takes some time when you’re just starting out, but it’s worth it in the end when you have networks and connections with people you never knew existed. The sharing and the knowledge and the conversations that happen each day are amazing, and if you’re a part of it, your online identity will prosper.
Social Networking Quick Tips
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Different Social Networking sites are good for different things. You don’t want the same information on all of the sites.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1) Facebook is a personal experience. Put your favorite movies, TV shows, and inspiration quotes on the page. Add a few applications that reflect positively on the hobbies and interests that you have.
2) MySpace is impersonal and highly commercial. This site was given over to spammers and tweens a long time ago, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have an account and have control of myspace.com/yourname though. Put a couple images up, make some friend connections, and move on.
3) LinkedIn is your professional resource. Take advantage of all of it’s features. People have been known to get hired because they posted or answers questions on the LinkedIn discussion area. Make connections with people and use those connections, send a friendly message every now and again, ask for recommendations from coworkers and supervisors when appropriate, be sure to link out to your personal portfolio or other social-networking site identities.
4) If you’re not Twittering you should be. If you don’t want to, sign up anyway and try it out. There is a lot of value locked up in those 140 characters and you should understand the system and how it works even if you aren’t going to participate.
5) Social networking is a lot of work, people quickly figure out when you’ve abandoned a particular site, or are only using it for professional purposes. Be personal, be professional. You have to find the right blend for you that fits into your growth goals.
This post is part of Jonathan Coffman’s Lessons In Social Media series.
When TV Listens To Its Viewers, Amazing Things Happen
April 28, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at ways news organizations can connect and interact with their viewership. This morning I was greeted by a basic, but excellent interaction on Good Morning America.
I’ve got ABC turned on in my hotel room this morning for background noise and they ran a story about the upcoming issue of Vanity Fair which has some photographs of Miley Cyrus (Story here) scantily clad. Cyrus is a huge Disney made and owned child start at only 15. As always, the GMA web site is open to comments on stories, and they actively solicit “editorial” based feedback via email as well.
It’s now 8am EDT and the original story aired no more than 30 minutes ago, there are already 150+ comments on the story from people pro and against the photos and dolling out advice. This level of immediate feedback and interaction is awesome! What’s more, just a few minutes ago the Good Morning America talking heads came back from a commercial break and spent 30 seconds discussing the comments they were seeing on their web site.
This interaction and discussion online, and on-air has tremendous power, and I hope that it’s something your news organization is open to or considering doing.
My Ideal Job
April 4, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
By way of looking introspectively at my self and my ambitions I have a pretty good idea of my ideal job is at this point. I’ve known for quite some time that being in the service of the public and working toward a greater good is in my blood. My mother was a teacher and my dad is a businessman. Between the two of them I acquired a passion for serving the public, and a business savvy entrepreneurial drive.
I’ve been on the path of working in the field of journalism for about 8 years now. Journalism attracted me in part because of the immense power of the press and how good journalism can be a cause for change. In addition, there are all kinds of cool toys that people in the news and information business can play with!
So that brings me to the ultimate point of this post, my ideal job:
- Serves the public interest, educating and informing them.
- Is collaborative with other smart people.
- Allows for the intelligent expression and discussion of ideas and suggestions.
- Brings people (both internally and externally) to have better, more efficient communication.
- Allows people to discuss and achieve.
What Radio Stations Can Do NOW To Gain Listenership
March 21, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I’ll start by saying that radio is not my native tongue. I’ve done some editing and producing work for a local NPR affiliate but not much else. That doesn’t mean that my comments should be discounted, just that some of these may already be out there and I’m just not aware of it yet.
Here are some ideas on how radio can gain listenership NOW.
- Less crazy-talking DJs, more content (be it music, news, or other)
- More local and hyper-local content. Broadcast from places where your listeners are. It’s not that difficult to stream back to the station via microwave, satellite, or web. Join the rest of the world in the trenches.
- Stream your content on the web, all of it. I may be able to have headphones connected to my laptop at work easier than I can have a radio sitting on my desk.
- Indie Radio. Need I say more? No offense to Cumulus, etc, but geez, a little local ownership every once in a while never hurt anyone too badly.
- Discussion boards and blogs on your site, your listeners are likely all interested in some of the same things, so play to hose interests and let them talk amongst themselves. You may be surprised at how articulate they really are.
What ideas do YOU have? Share them in the comments.
Facebook Developers = Old Boys Club
February 10, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Facebook Platform Developer Forum / Need some quick adjustments made to my very basic app…: “”
Alright, I admit I was being a little facetious in my post, but I was genuinely wanting to hire someone on a fair wage to help with a couple Facebook Applications I’m launching. The responses I got were rude, inconsiderate and defensive. This certainly is a good example of how NOT to foster a community of inclusiveness.
Now I’m not a huge fan of Facebook anyway, it just takes too much time. But I recently launched some basic apps for some newsroom clients of mine that just displays items from their RSS feeds, pretty simple stuff.
There are a couple small features that I’d like to implement on those Facebook Applications so I read through the Facebook Developer Docs and wiki, to no avail, this stuff just isn’t documented well at all (they’ve had this problem for months!)… so I registered and got an account on the developers discussion board hoping to pay someone a little cash to write up these changes. From what I can tell by the docs, it’s not really a bid deal, most of the code is there already… I just don’t know how to implement it.
So, it doesn’t look like I’m going to get any bites from that forum thread, anyone know a Facebook Developer who’d be willing to help me out a little? I just want an ‘invite’ page (in php), and maybe a drop-down box to give the user a selective way to change the ‘feed’ in their profile.
Web Design and Buildouts
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
As a web designer I have a small bit of experience ranging from e-commerce and mail-order companies, to micro-sites advertising goods and services, to blogs, discussion boards, and a philanthropic site. I’ve built a wide variety.
I’m passionate about online communities, and in order to positively affect change you have to remember who you ultimately are serving, the almighty user. Enhancing user experience is vital to any project whether offline or online.
You’ll find links below to some of the sites I’ve designed and built over the years. The methods and the technology has changed, and so have I. Design and development went from largely Photoshop comps hard coded into HTML sites to standards based XHTML, Flash, and Content Management Systems.
All of my projects strive to be standards compliant and I especially enjoy working with people who believe in open source software (Drupal and WordPress are my favorites) the benefits to both the developers and the users when taking advantage of open code.
News and Journalism based sites:
- Smart Decision 2008
- KOMU Blogs and Boards (online community, still in development)
- KOMU News Base (online training and tutorial site for newsroom employees)
- Kansas City Pets (WDAF-TV micro site)
Personal and Professional Sites (many of these sites are simply archived copies, some links may not work on them):
- Creative Celebrations (2002)
- FunFunFun For Kids
- CB Designs
- Family Guy Quotes
- How You Can Volunteer
- Perennial Podcast
- JonathanCoffman.com Version 1
Local TV News Online
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I worked at KOMU-TV8 in Columbia, Missouri for 3 years. All of that time I have been involved in content, design, development, editing, and producing for KOMU.com. I started as a web editor writing and producing content to go into a new content manager that the station had licensed (Avid Active Content Manager). From there I build up quite a list of stories that I worked on, over 1,400 before leaving to concentrate on social media and online community building.
In addition to the daily editing and producing work, I periodically managed teams of reporters and field producers to ensure that online and new media needs were being met in the field. My management and producing skills allowed KOMU.com to see a lot of growth and new online features including slideshows, behind the scenes video, raw interview footage, and the beginnings of an online community building effort.
Here are some examples of stories and web packages that I worked on at KOMU.com:
In addition to working for KOMU News, I also have had a summer internship with FOX 4, WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri. While with WDAF I,
- Researched, developed, and launched a Kansas City Pets micro site
- Implemented and wrote a Before You Go daily email update
- And worked breaking news like the Kelsey Smith Murder case, all while moderating blogs, discussion boards, and chatrooms.
My sound news judgement has allowed me to take on leadership, and team cooperative roles in television newsrooms. Through my creative and entrepreneurial drive I’m able to take stories to a higher and more interactive level for online and on-air viewers.
GetSatisfaction - More Contributr Support
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I posted the other day about our primary support initiative through PBwiki, I’m really loving producing content for that site and I hope it proves to be a very valuable resource for our clients.
But I just didn’t think that a wiki was enough, we really need a way to handle bug-reports, feature requests, and general technical and content difficulties. Again, I went on a little research hunt. And again, I tried out some open-source options first. We really could have used just about anything and customized it to work well for us… In fact, Contributr would honestly be a pretty darn sweet support engine come to think of it.
Anyway, again after some social-media searching I decided we ought to have more people-powered support, who wants to fill out a bug report, or a feature request form anyway? I hate those things! So we’re going with the great people over at Satisfaction. They have this great system that’s a series of forums, discussions, polls, help, it’s just about all you’d need and it’s powered by the people, which we LOVE at Contributr!
Visit our Contributr People Powered Search by Satisfaction today and see just how easy it is to help, and get help. It’s all about discourse man!
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