BBC.com announced today that it’s launching two new verticals –BBC Capital and BBC Entrepreneurship. Jennifer Merritt, formerly of the WSJ and Business Week, will head up the Capital section, which features sections on Leadership, Personal Finance, and Workplace with featured columnists Liz Garone, Kelsey Hubbard, and Ron Alsop, respectively.

The Entrepreneurship section will, according to the release this morning:

provide small business owners and investors with engaging insights from people who have made their businesses successful. The site will feature weekly insights from award-winning BBC business correspondent, Peter Day, and a series called Thinking Business that will examine the latest ideas – for example, why are there so many startup competitions?

The new verticals are part of a move to charge “into business coverage with full force,” according to Nick Ascheim, SVP of Consumer Digital at BBC.com.

What do you think of the expansion and the content?

Every summer, I promise that I’m going to use the downtime to get my act together and work on my website and portfolio, and then get lazy about doing all of the work.  That’s why my ears always perk up when I hear about portfolio sites that do all of the hard work for you.

It’s surprising that there aren’t more portfolio building sites targeted at journalists, ones focused on just showcasing your clips, without making you choose background themes and fonts reminiscent of an early MySpace page. But don’t forget about Clippings.me if you, like me, need to get your clips together and don’t have the advanced skills to create your own gorgeous, professional website.

Clippings.me was a pioneer in the market and has just launched a professional package that makes using the site more intuitive and, quite frankly, makes it something you can be proud to link to or use as a digital resume.

The Pro Package runs you $8 per month. You can upload as many clips — print and web articles, video, even podcasts — to your page, as you can with the free version. The perks include being able to host your own domain and have access to social media stats. You can see exactly where your specific clips were shared and commented on, as well as your clippings.me profile.  Read more

A 250-pound bear climbs a tree in Connecticut, and the local mayor live tweets about it.  It sounds like a pretty standard day on Twitter, but this particular encounter was different.

It went crazy viral.

How does a seemingly ordinary alert from a mayor about a bear incident become the subject of the entire Internet’s curiosity? Well, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton’s Twitter presence explains a lot about his personality. Known for tweeting rap lyrics and maintaining a casually silly presence on the social media site, Boughton is the mayoral version of a lounge lizard compared to other high-profile political social media stars (the heroic Cory Booker, hailing one state over in New Jersey, comes to mind).

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The Boston Review launched their new website today, and whether you’re a dedicated reader or not, it’s worth a peek.

The magazine has always seen good design as a way to engage to readers. In 2010, they switched from a black and white tabloid to a glossy, full color mag. In print, they wanted it to be beautiful and permanent, according to marketing director Daniel Pritchard, “something our readers could keep on the shelf.”

On the web, “the goal is to engage new readers, so we wanted it to be easily accessible and easier to navigate, expressing the same aesthetic but thinking about the structure very differently,” Pritchard told me in an email. I think those goals are reflected in the new design.

Some features:

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We all have social media and digital best practices coming out of ears. But after thinking about how big media companies make their dough, I realized that, although there aren’t always the resources and staff and innovation teams at smaller papers, there are some simple, almost silly, tips smaller papers can take from the behemoths in terms of reader engagement. Things that make your organization seem relevant and savvy.

1. Go Vice

Ok, you don’t have to start covering the sex beat in your town, but start thinking outside the box. Vice isn’t just a magazine anymore, it’s also a production company, and a marketing agency. Is there a crime beat reporter who could easily start posting video reports along with his written one? Are there events or causes you could sponsor that you aren’t? Run a summer program where high school students can run their own vertical. Nothing is more niche than a local hometown. Be all over it. If there is a kinky sex beat, start covering it.   Read more