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.
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.
links for 2008-06-19
June 19, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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Seriously? Who do these people think they’re fooling?
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More on the AP argument.
links for 2008-06-17
June 17, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
links for 2008-06-16
June 16, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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The man behind the Bird.
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2-factor authentication via PhoneCalls, now integrated with OpenID… Pretty good idea to increase web security access.
links for 2008-06-10
June 10, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
links for 2008-06-09
June 9, 2008 by Jonathan · 1 Comment
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Yum!
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Some good things to keep in mind if nothing else.
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Interesting Idea.
links for 2008-06-06
June 6, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
links for 2008-06-05
June 5, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
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Wow, this new camcorder is pretty awesome!
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This looks interesting. Maybe I’ll attend.
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OtherProfiles
