site management

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.

Read more

Today’s viewers aren’t just watching TV as a solitary experience. Whether it’s the iPad, an Android tablet, or even the new Kindle Fire, tablet devices are quickly becoming an integral part of television viewing. Or as Nielsen puts it, cross platform is the new norm. 40% of tablet (and smartphone) owners in the U.S. used their devices daily while watching television, which creates a prime opportunity for news stations and news programs to reach a captive audience.

We’ve talked before about a few tips to define your newsroom’s mobile presence, but let’s look a little closer at a few more ways news organizations can help reach news junkies on that second screen.

Read more

BOSTON — Google News unveiled a major new feature at the Online News Association Conference on Saturday, which will allow publishers to mark their top content as well as give credit to others who have a major scoop.

The new feature is called standout, and it’s a tag that goes into the “head” element of a website’s HTML code. The basic syntax is:
<link rel="standout" href="LINK TO STORY" />
Read more

If your newsroom is anything like mine or others that I’ve seen — you get emails, and lots of them. When I first started working at a newspaper, I opened my email account to find a few thousand waiting for me. Since then, it’s been a constant stream, and it’s no wonder; there’s lots of communication that needs to happen to put a paper out every day and a website out every second.

Email is easy — everyone can access it and hopefully by now everyone knows how to use it, but from an efficiency standpoint, email is a drag. There are better tools out there that can help take you document and communicate better. Read more

WordPress 3.2 “Gershwin,” released earlier this summer, got me more excited than a typical WordPress release.

There’s the beautiful, HTML 5 Twenty Eleven default theme. There’s the different post formats.

Then there’s the refreshed dashboard that includes a full screen editor function.

Read more