NewsTechZilla » Business

What Is The Solution? You Tell Us

Trace Sharp — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:56:16 +0000

By Trace Sharp

A journalism great once said these words:

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions. – Edward R. Murrow

That one sentence speaks volumes. We live in a time where we hear the buzzwords of the moment. Social networking, media strategists, online gurus and the list goes on.

But what does it all mean?

Granted, blogging and social media such as Twitter, Facebook or even the bright and shiny tackiness of MySpace have changed the world of communication. Some of the keys right now for media comes down to how to monetize our product and embrace the new tools available to us. If you are a journalist, you are going to have to embrace video. If you don’t know how and technology scares the pants off of you, you are going to have to get through your issues and move forward.

Why? Because as Ferris Bueller said “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it.”

I would like to see some of readers write feature articles for NewsTechZilla that focuses on the solutions and not slogans, how with the speed that the Internet has changed our lifestyles what tools and disciplines are they using to deal with the speed of sound our entire industry is moving and I’d also like to hear suggestions for what you guys are dealing with. Give us your ideas and Scott and I will check it out if we don’t know the answer.

Are you a journalist? Do you consider yourself a citizen journalist who is an activist? Do you own a business that you are trying to market on the Web? What do you like better: Twitter, Friendfeed, Skype or new applications that might be new to us? What technological tools are you using on your online product? How are you branding yourself? Have you lost your job and what are you going to do? What video software are you using?

Slogans are great but they aren’t the solution all the time.

What solutions do you see as we move through this transitional time of journalism?

Let’s hear your voice.

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Building Clientele Through Twitter

Trace Sharp — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:50:52 +0000

This post at Mr. Tweet tells how mainstream businesses can use Twitter to build up their clientele.

When J.R. Cohen, Operations Manager for CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) Cafe in Houston, Texas first heard about Twitter from one of his customers, he was puzzled but intrigued. Today, he credits Twitter with almost doubling his clientele and with opening his eyes to a whole new way to build Community.

This is one issue that needs to be talked about. It’s not just journalists and social media strategists that can benefit from microblogging.

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Community Blogs May be the Newspapers of the Future

Trace Sharp — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 11:44:13 +0000

By Kathy Tyson

Nashville. The appeal of bright lights, big city brought my family here more than five years ago, but instead of moving into the metro area we opted for a neighboring town. Homes were more affordable and we could get an acre or two to stretch our legs, get a dog, and plant a garden.

What I didn’t expect was the absence of a dedicated news source for my community of 25,000. Sure there was one daily paper for the entire county, but it focused on the bigger town up the road. Sure there was an army of media elite next door in the big city … newspapers, radio, and TV, but they also focused on Nashville.

Smyrna and LaVergne were the red-headed stepchildren of news coverage – we were the bump in the road between Nashville and Murfreesboro. With a gaping information vacuum for Northeast Rutherford County, a friend of mine started a web log called This is Smyrna (http://thisissmyrnatn.blogspot.com/). Her site traffic was strong and she pulled in a lot of comments and news suggestions from people living in the community. Through word-of-mouth – and the internet – This is Smyrna was growing into a great source for local information.

Following her lead, I started This is LaVergne (www.thisislavergne.com) on February 2, 2006 for my new hometown. I expected the city to be ecstatic about our site because I envisioned a partnership between us – a forum for citizen comments and a way for the city to promote their events. However, what should have been an asset to the town was viewed by some in the local government as a threat. There would be no welcoming rainbows and unicorns from our local government; instead, there would be a fight.

When readers would ask questions or comment about concerns, the city viewed it as an attack on their ability to govern. About a year after the site opened – and after we’d received several comments belittling the site – one writer suggested that police salaries should be increased because corruption often comes hand in hand with low police pay.
http://thisislavergne.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/no-jail-in-la-vergne-are-we-less-safe/ This caused quite a stir from one fuming reader, but others came to our defense,

If you want real action, stop griping on this site and write them [city officials] directly. That, they pay attention to…. Otherwise, out of sight, out of mind.

Good to know that the leaders of the La Vergne are only interested in the concerns that come through proper channels and can’t be bothered with a website created by concerned residents for fear of encountering occasional “controversy” of “bitchiness”.

After some very angry comments made against the site, our writers, and readers, we discovered that the attacks were coming from one person using several aliases (and whose IP address was listed as the city’s). The goal was to discredit our site, but the plan backfired because it was the controversy that greatly boosted our readership. After months more of trolling, an actual threat was made against me, so I went to one of our elected officials who with the mayor finally put a stop to it.

To this day, we don’t have what can be described as a good relationship with the city officially. Unofficially, I’ve been contacted by numerous city workers who’ve expressed gratitude and relief that there is a forum for the community. We give credit was credit is due when a city worker has gone above and beyond the call of duty. We attend city events and take photos. We write restaurant reviews and tell about new businesses that have opened.

The impact on the community is measurable. One reader suggested two years ago that the city buy a foreclosure in a huge subdivision that’s earned a bad reputation. He brought to public attention the idea to convert a house into a police substation and city offices – bring the city to the people for bill payments and police protection. While no house was purchased, the city did move a trailer into a park and now the police have a 24-hour presence in the troubled subdivision.

Although we can’t give ourselves credit because it may have been something in the works before it was publicly stated on our site, we can say we were quite vocal in our support of the idea and applauded the chief of police for his dogged pursuit of making it happen.

Meanwhile, we’ve grown to 10 volunteer writers and each has a distinct personality with views that appeal to a broad range of readers. We link to all the public schools that local students attend as well as other local web sites. In addition, I give periodic updates on the local housing market, including an annual neighborhood breakdown of real estate activity. Although they are linked, the community site and my business blog are in tandem because This is LaVergne was not developed to promote my availability as a real estate agent, but to provide a source of news and information for the residents of our town.

The print media might be disappearing from big towns, but in some small towns across America we can say, “Been there, done that.” We are used to it and have already found a way to communicate. Whether government or local officials like us or not, we are here to stay. Current major media should pay attention – community blogging may be the next wave news reporting.

Kathy Tyson is a Realtor specializing in residential real estate in Middle Tennessee. She was previously a communications manager for the National Association of State Treasurers, helped to establish the College Savings Plans Network whose membership gained tax exemption from Congress for state 529 college savings plans, and is an author of three books that can be found if you search her name at Lulu.com. When not selling real estate, Kathy uses her B.S. in Journalism and Broadcasting from Murray State University writing for Shak & Jill (www.shakandjill.com) and Banks.com (www.banks.com/blogs/realestate).

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