site management

You may remember a few weeks ago when we talked about 3 things journalists can teach themselves over their winter vacations. One of these things is learning how to create a blog so you can showcase your writing. While you could start a blog with any number of services (WordPress, Blogger, etc.), Scriptogram has streamlined this process by allowing you to create your own blog just using a text file and a free Dropbox account. (Dropbox, in case you’re not familiar with the service, is a service which stores your files in the cloud and allows you to access them using a number of different apps across multiple operating systems and mobile platforms.)

Getting set up with scriptogr.am takes less than five minutes, and all you need to begin is a Dropbox account. Once you have that, visit the scriptogr.am website and click Dropbox connect to begin the process.

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Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.

Facebook Comments, which have become a favorite third-party commenting tool of publishers, now work on mobile devices, Facebook said in a blog post on Wednesday.

The integration is automatic. If a website has the comment box implemented, the mobile version of Facebook comments will automatically display for users on mobile devices.

“The Comments Box for mobile is the latest update to the plugin to make commenting more social and authentic, improve the quality of conversations online, and drive traffic and engagement to media sites,” Facebook wrote in the post. Read more

If your newsroom has a blogging platform or a content management system that allows you to assign keywords, doing it right and consistently can lead to really interesting ways of sorting, filtering and displaying content.

As trivial as this concept may seem to those of you who read this blog (and are probably of a more tech-savvy breed), you might be surprised to learn that tagging is a concept that doesn’t come easily to newsrooms — and I don’t mean that from a skill set or tech-savviness standpoint. If you have dozens or hundreds of people contributing pieces of metadata to a single system, there will inevitably be inconsistencies that dilute the quality and usefulness of your tagging system. Read more

The New York Times on Wednesday rolled out a new commenting system that rewards its most trusted users.

The Times, which moderates comments on the select stories that accept them, will now allow readers who consistently have their comments approved to post their comments without any type of moderation.

The details, reported by Poynter, are just the tip of the iceberg of a bigger overhaul of commenting at The Times. Read more

In the current media landscape where online startups are looking to fill the void left by wilting traditional media, starting a business is only the beginning. Though first steps are important, many startups are starting to face problems in sustaining their enterprises. This is what a new study by the Renaissance Journalism Center seeks to understand. The study surveyed 32 media startups to see what challenges they are facing in terms of preserving and obtaining funds. What can we learn from these findings to help build sustainable journalism startups?

1. Be on the lookout for new sources of revenue

Most of the startups surveyed (71.9 percent) are non-profits that received initial funding in the form of foundation grants. But grants are more difficult to obtain for existing sites so many of the organizations are finding themselves short of resources. Foundations are more interested in funding new journalistic experiments, not helping existing ones survive. That means startups need to be resourceful: build relationships with local journalism experts from schools, trade organizations, and angel investor groups. Communicating with similar startups can encourage idea sharing about new streams of revenue.

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