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.
Hurricane Ike Media Review: Judging Criteria
September 15, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going to be writing reviews of the local and national media’s response to Hurricane Ike this past weekend.
What I’ll focus on:
- Update frequency
- Web site usability
- User generated content solicitation and usage
- Multi-media coverage
- Distribution of content outside the “walled garden”
- Innovation, or lack thereof in coverage
Where I’m coming from:
- I have family who lives in a Houston suburb
- I am familiar with the Houston television market having visited several of the TV studios and spoken with employees there in the past
- I live in the Washington DC area, so do not have access to live television or radio coverage from Houston unless streaming media is available
- I work in social media for a major media company
- My background is in journalism, information distribution, and online community building
If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section of any post. Notice someone doing something that I’ve missed? Let me know and I’ll be sure to update posts or continue the series as necessary.
Each of the media outlets I’ll profile and review this week are major operations with large audiences. I don’t want to be too critical of efforts or insinuate that there is any one “right” way of doing things online because there isn’t. What I’m measuring them against are what I consider to be the current “best practices” in online media distribution.
Also understand that each of these companies have very different technical and infrastructure components which I’ll address where possible.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
The Week Ahead: Reviews of the Media Response to Hurricane Ike
September 14, 2008 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
All next week I’ll be walking you through the online and on-air media response of both the national and Houston based media. As opposed to most national disasters I actually have a personal connection to this one with my family living in Missouri City, Texas, a Houston suburb. I currently live and work in the Washington DC area.
My perspective and reviews of advanced media efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ike will come from that of someone who does have a personal interest in the coverage but who also works for a major media company trying to make information distribution a more personal experience for the consumer.
There have been some winners, and some losers in the first 24 hours of “wall-to-wall” hurricane coverage and I’ll walk you through both sides. If you don’t already subscribe to my RSS feed, be sure to do so now.
We’ll see how things go this week, but right now my plan is for one to two posts daily. Each focusing on a different media outlet and the things they’re doing right as well as what they should consider improving.
If you have any questions or comments, my comments form is always open and email is a great way to get a hold of me.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
Houston Chronicle Excels in Hurricane Ike Coverage
September 13, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
As someone who not only is interested in news and journalism, but who also works in social media for a living I constantly see television stations and newspapers who either don’t take advantage of advances in technology or completely ignore the true value in the power of people.
This morning as I think about my family who lives in Missouri City, Texas (a Houston suburb) I scoured the web to find the best and most complete coverage and information about Hurricane Ike.
First I turned to MyFoxHouston.com, the Fox TV affiliate for Houston. They have a a special live-chat, live-broadcast, maps, video, and audio going full force on a micro-site called MyFoxHoustonLive.com. This I feel was overkill, it’s too much to process at once. Yes they are using technology to extend their coverage beyond “wall to wall” - which I commend them for - but the page was cluttered, it was hard to focus on anything, and in general there was just too much going on.
I then tried the other TV networks, both national and local. Of course the national networks have information but still lack the “instant” updates that I wanted.
My next link was the Houston Chronicle (to be honest, they were actually the first place I looked yesterday afternoon for updated maps and evacuation information). Chron.com may not have the fancy cameras and satellites that the TV stations have, but what they do feature are blogs. Live blogs. This is my favorite format for live and constantly updated information. Blogs let the user read as much or as little as they want, and in chronological order.
Not only are there two blogs updating every few minutes (one focuses on the science, the other on news and information) but the Chronicle was also smart enough to start a Twitter feed of constantly updated informaiton, and also began pulling public “tweets” into their site.
To me, this shows absolute respect for their users both locally and nationally. and THAT’s the key to success in the news business - giving the customer what they want, when they want it, while maintaining your ethical standards.
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This post is part of the Hurrricane Ike Media Review series by Jonathan Coffman. I welcome your comments below.
Learn To ‘Social Media’
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Since I work in social-media I see it everyday, some people get it, and some people don’t. Building social-media isn’t a one-time thing. It takes time to find conversations, to build reputation, and learn the best ways to share your knowledge with the world.
Here’s the thing, social media isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay. Now it may not always be in the same form that it is right now but it’ll be here.
As one of my final projects at the Missouri School of Journalism in the Convergence Journalism department I wrote up some tip sheets on personal branding, and some of the basics of social-media. Take a look at the Lessons In Social Media series and let me know what other topics you think people who are just beginning to “get it” need to know!
Here are the posts I have up right now:
- The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
- Social Networking Quick Tips
- How To Get Hired Using Social Media
- Google Alerts For Personal Branding Management
- More to come!
How To Get Hired Using Social Media
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I was lucky enough to know and be on the bleeding edge of social-networking when it began several years ago. I also spent a lot of time cultivating and contributing to my online identity and making connections with people online. The good news is that you don’t have to be an early adopter, or an Internet wiz to get hired using social media.
Looking for a job isn’t easy, and it can be very frustrating. Social media can help, but it’s not a replacement for old fashioned phone calls, emails, and letters. When I graduated from the Missouri School of Journalism I had multiple job offers, and the best of those offers were ones that I came across or was a candidate for because of social media.
For some time, I had been Twittering, Facebooking, and Blogging. I spent money to make sure my blog looked good. I spent hours finding interesting people on Twitter. I stayed up late when I should have been doing other things honing in my online portfolio. And you know what? It all paid off.
One job offer came from a person who followed me on Twitter for two months and noticed that I was talking with increased frequency about finding a job. A couple phone calls and emails later, I was interviewing and had an offer before I got home from visiting.
The other job offer from social-media crossed platforms, I knew the person who knew about a job, but we follow each other on Twitter, and are Facebook friends. Again, my talking about finding a job was seen by this person and I got a Facebook message about openings where she worked. It just so happened that this job was a perfect fit, I got the offer, and took it.
In two paragraphs I just explained how I got a job using social media, but that’s not incredibly useful is it? To help with that, here are my tips and suggestions on finding a job using social-media.
- Put your portfolio and resume online. This is more important than you realize. You’ve just in an instant opened up your resume and portfolio of work to the millions of people online. Now you just need to help people find it.
- Sign up for Twitter and find some people with similar interests to tweet back and forth with. You’ll quickly understand by looking at some of the so called Twitterati how useful and powerful this service is. After you sign up for an account “follow” @chrisbrogan, @guykawasaki, and @scobleizer the three of them have thousands of followers already and actively tweet throughout the day and night. A lot can be learned by example.
- Start a blog. This is a GREAT way to show off your knowledge and skills. This doesn’t have to be complex, start it off on Blogger or Wordpress.com if you want (although I would highly suggest putting wherever you portfolio and resume is). Write one or twice a week at first about what you’re working on, what you’re thinking about (that relates to your job ambitions), and your goals. Some of the best job related feedback I got was on my blog by people emailing and commenting when I wrote a post about “My Ideal Job”.
- Drive traffic to your online portfolio and resume. Do this by putting links on your Facebook page, in your Twitter profile, putting it in big type at the top of your paper resume, and by having it on ALL correspondence online and off. You never know where emails or resumes may get forwarded, and if your online portfolio is linked right there for easy access it makes a world of difference.
- Make It Personal. This is your job hunt, and it’s not going to be easy, but by taking advantage of the basics of social-media your job hunt can expand beyond the traditional into the extraordinary. Social media doesn’t work unless you’re human and make it personal. Being professional and sharing ideas is going to increase your credibility, but not including personal moments will exclude you from the conversation.
Lessons In Social Media
June 22, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
Social media doesn’t have to be intimidating, in fact it’s very easy to get started and build a base of information and conversation upon which to learn and grow. As an active participant, researcher, and social-media based employee, I use social media for both my personal life and professional growth.
There are numerous opportunities to get out there and explore, by reading through these basic lessons and tip sheets I hope you can take better advantage of the soon to be ubiquitous social side of the Internet.
I wrote these tip sheets and information pages as one of my final projects at the Missouri School of Journalism in the spring of 2008. They are written toward an audience who may have heard about social-media but isn’t sure how to get started.
There will be follow up and additional information added to this resource as I have time to expand the series. If you have any questions please contact me. And as always, comments are open, leave your thoughts, edits, and changes below.
Lessons In Social Media:
- The Basics of Managing Your Online Identity
- Social Networking Quick Tips
- How To Get Hired Using Social Media
- Google Alerts For Personal Branding Management
- More to come!
links for 2008-04-26
April 26, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
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Is Twitter worth $150 million?
Twitter, A Journalist’s Best Friend
April 25, 2008 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
Here’s a little nugget and inspiration I’d love to get some feedback from the masses on:
On Email Organization
April 22, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
For the last month or so I’ve been on a rampage, an email rampage. I haven’t quite hit Inbox Zero but inbox 30-40 suits me well actually. Here’s what I’ve done:
- I now have only 2 visible email addresses, Gmail and my @jonathancoffman.com mail. Those other addresses (.Mac, Yahoo!, Mizzou, and my secondary Gmail) all now get picked up by my primary Gmail account, this way I only have two inboxes to check, and hopefully by responding to those with only one address I gradually get fewer and fewer messages going to those other addys.
- Combining the last two addresses, my primary gmail and my domain email isn’t yet feasible. I can’t quite take myself down to that level yet. Because they’re used for two very different purposes (personal and professional) the use cases will remain mutually exclusive for the time being.
- The downside to still having two inboxes: two sets of gmail tags/folders. My domain email is handled by GoogleApps (which I love by the way), so for now I have two identical but disconnected sets of tags.
- Account and Login Information
- Banking
- Bills
- Blog Conversations
- Contributr
- Current Projects
- Pipeline Projects
- Coupons and Discounts
- Job Hunting
- Journalism School
- Newsletters
- Personal (family)
- Private Betas
- Product Orders
- Service Orders
- Require followup
- Servers and Hosting
- Social Media
- Travel
- URGENT
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OtherProfiles
