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.
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.
Upcoming Flickr Video May Be A Big Win
March 16, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the information that Flickr may be releasing a video product in the coming weeks. As a long-time Flickr user and supporter I thought I’d take a moment to chime in.
Here’s the deal, Flickr is REALLY good at images, I’ve tried lots of image hosts and none can touch Flickr, it’s just too darn intuitive. Sure I appreciate new and innovative features that other sites will on occasion release, but as complete packages go, Flickr is it.
It used to be known that Apple made really good personal computers, I mean so good that people became Apple users instead of Computer users. Then, the world started spinning backwards and Apple released the original iPod. The iPod changed everything. This is just one example of how a company who does one thing very well, can in fact do other things very well.
So my stance on the potential for Flickr video is that they may be able to do what others haven’t, create a video hosting solution that is classy, beautiful, and just work. I trust my thousands of images to Flickr , and I can see myself trusting video to them as well.
I might also add that I’m a Flickr Premium user, and you should be too. For a measly $25 a year you can store and unlimited number of images and share those images with an unlimited amount of people. It’s a great way to keep all your images safe, and easily printable for those of you who like to keep paper copies of pictures.
Here’s some of the many blog posts that are talking about Flickr Video today:
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-02-08
February 8, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- My new found love for Backups is underway, I’ve got TimeMachine running, DVDs of photos burning, and files uploading! #
- Well, I’m still uploading pics to my backup server, which makes working on my own personal site v-e-r-y slow #
- Good night Twitterville, I’m off to bed #
- At work, not real busy today so working on my portfolio, I need a real job! #
- If you haven’t been to my Portfolio/Resume site in a while check it out, I’ve been working on it! http://tinyurl.com/22bts3 #
- Hmm lunch tim then Sams Club #
- Working on my Awesome personal site for a bit, needs more pictures! #
- Got some good news about Contributr today #
Jonathan’s Twitter Updates for 2008-01-23
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
- Cooking a delightful little dinner of chicken and peas (you’re on Twitter to hear what others are eating didn’t you??
# - Watching Season 1 Disk 1 of The Wire (have you seen it?) #
- Just getting out of a Contributr meeting, 9 days until my AIR app launches! #
- @samharrelson I haven’t yet taken anyone off, but I’m thinking about being proactive about the pending spam-splosion. #
- Getting a passport photo, never know when you might have to flee! #
- Err travel
# - SAMs club usually has decent samples, but a free knife? Crazy! #
- I’ve got 3-4 websites I have to launch in the next 2-weeks so I’ll be working on those this afternoon. #
- I need to whip up a quick podcast, what’s your favorite tool for making one? Or should I do it by hand? #
- @gruber I think you’ve hit all the big ones, iTweet and PocketTweets are my favs right now, but that varies. None is perfect yet. #
- oh why/oh why, does Flash Video Encoder take so long/ wait don’t answer that/ I know why/ but I DO wish I had a faster machine to do it on! #
- @acafourek haven’t used it yet, but it appears to be of good weight and balance, it may be a winner! #
- I’m Lifecasting over at Justin.TV here for a bit, call my Grand Central number if you want to converse live! http://tinyurl.com/2kd6j2 #
- Taking my personal site down for a few minutes while I upload Version 2.0 #
- Do you own YOURNAME.com/.net/.org/.tv? I purchased all TLDs for my name, wise or waste? #
Conversations
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
To start, you should check out my blog and add the RSS feed to your favorite feed reader. While you’re doing that, you might also subscribe to my Podcast which I update on occasion with pieces of journalism. I welcome comments and suggestions on each of my posts on my blog, and you can also find me participating in conversations on the following social-networking sites:
I recently started posting a daily link blog with news, information, and resources all relating to social media. Check it out and submit your own links!
- Jaiku
- Pownce
- MySpace
- Justin.TV
- JonathanCoffman.tv
- Tumblr.com
- Del.icio.us
- Dopplr
- Flickr
- FriendFeed
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
Printed Publications
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
While electronic journalism is my biggest interest area, the printed word rings clear in my heart and desire. I’ve designed a fair amount of printed materials for both personal and professional projects and you can find links to some of them below.
- Local Great Clips hair salon Advertising pieces
- Downtown Mainstreet Organization Printed Brochure
- Newspaper spreads from several years ago
Technology Skills
January 23, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Because different types of content demand different usage of technology, I strive to stay abreast of the latest ways to create and distribute content in multiple media formats. From creative and collaborative, to vision and video, Software and technology tools shouldn’t dictate the way content spreads I’ve broken down the tools that I use into categories according to how much I’ve used them.
I’m very comfortable with and have trained others in the professional use of the following tools:
- Adobe Acrobat
- Adobe Bridge
- Adobe Photoshop Extended
- Adobe Dreamweaver
- Adobe Flash Professional
- Adobe InDesign
- Apple iLife Suite
- Apple iWork Suite
- Apple Final Cut Studio
- Avid iNews
- Avid Active Content Manager
- Avid Newscutter
- Fox Interactive Media CMS - FOX licensed content management system used by FOX affiliates
I’m very comfortable in using the following tools and know how and where to get assistance when needed:
Open-source software that I have used and developed using:
Web Technologies that I have developed with:
- PHP
- Ruby/Rails
- Django
- XHTML
- HTML
- CSS
- MySQL
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OtherProfiles
