Google Offers a Topic Page Plugin … Skip It
How’s this for a koinkydink: Just when we’ve been talking a lot about topic pages for local blogs, Google announces a set of Wordpress plugins for what it calls “Living Story pages.”
That’s the same thing as what the rest of us call a topic page — a single URL where all information about an ongoing story/event/etc. lives permanently. But here’s the thing: skip Google’s plugins. Ignore it. Pretend it doesn’t exist.
Why?
Because it’s too freaking complicated. Seriously, just look at the documentation. It’s a guaranteed winner for Most Complicated and Convoluted Wordpress Extension Ever.
It’s not just one plugin; it’s four plugins. And you have to install and activate them in a certain order.
It doesn’t work unless you also install the Living Stories Wordpress theme. Yep, good luck with that. Can’t imagine there’s gonna be a lot of adoption with that requirement.
I like what Michael Gray said earlier on Twitter:
That says it all….
Stats: Traditional Journalists vs Online Journalists
This is something of a postscript to yesterday’s piece, New Jersey court says blogger is not a journalist … something I remembered reading and finally re-discovered online that adds a bit to the discussion.
Earlier this year, PRWeek and PRNewswire conducted a study of 3,000+ “traditional and non-traditional media” and PR practicioners in the U.S. and Canada. Some of the survey questions focused on this dichotomy (which I hope will go away someday) over who’s a journalist and who’s a blogger. Let me highlight below some of the study’s findings:
- The majority of bloggers now view themselves as journalists – 52%. This is a marked increase from 2009 when just one in three had the same opinion. Yet, despite viewing themselves as professional, only 20% derive the majority of their income from their blog work; a 4% increase from 2009.
- …a striking change occurred in the second-most selected measure of success: “Break news and chronicle events as they happen.” Selected by 20% of respondents, the result was significantly greater than 2009 (5%) which indicates a growing premium on being first with news, likely driven by the growth of online reporting and the 24/7 news cycle.
There are also some interesting numbers about the use of social networking/media sites as research sources. Bloggers and online journalists do so a lot more frequently than traditional media reporters. Here’s a chart that I made to collect the various survey stats.
As you can see, bloggers and online journalists use blogs and Twitter for research a lot more often than newspaper and magazine reporters do.
So, while I’m all in favor of breaking down the barrier that seems to still exist between whether bloggers are journalists in the so-called traditional sense, this study suggests there are definitely differences in how these groups go about their work.
Is Your Blog on CNN’s home page? Mine is
If you go to CNN.com right now, wait for the page to load (wow, it’s slow), and then use the LOCAL NEWS & WEATHER widget on the right side, you can see a couple links to one of our local blogs. Just put in our local zip code and here’s what you’ll see:
I don’t know who or what WIVB is, but the other two links there both point to the West Richland Real Estate blog, one of the four that my wife and I write.
How on Earth Did That Happen?
What you’re looking at is one of the initial integrations of Outside.in’s partnership with CNN, which dates back to December when CNN sank some money into Outside.in.
Peter Krasilovsky reports that Outside.in content is also showing up now on CNN’s weather page and on user profile pages, too. I see the Outside.in headlines on the weather page, but they’re not nearly as targeted/accurate as the screenshot above. On the weather page, the “local” headlines below the West Richland weather mostly come from Seattle sources (with one from Kansas City, too).
How do I get my local blog on CNN, too?
Pretty simple: Submit your site to Outside.in for Bloggers, which was formerly known as the Outside.in GeoToolkit.
By the way, there’s no SEO value from these links; they first pass through the Outside.in API, then through your feed URL, and then to your blog. But CNN is (obviously) a hugely popular site, so I’ll be watching to see if there’s any traffic increase in the coming days and weeks.
Update: Topic Page Experiment
It’s been two weeks since I posted here on HLB about creating permanent topic pages for our hyperlocal blogs — an attempt to solve the problem of old blog posts getting search traffic for current information. Time to share a quick update with some good news. Have a look:
As you can see, our topic page about the local Hogs & Dogs event is already showing up on searches for one of the primary terms, hogs and dogs west richland. Over time, I’d like to see those two results flipped — the topic page getting priority with the old post indented. We’ll see if and when that happens.
New Jersey court says blogger is not a journalist
Here’s one to bookmark for the legal files: A New Jersey court has ruled that a blogger who was sued for defamation is not a journalist and not protected by the state’s “shield law.” Here’s the crux of the story from the Newark Star-Ledger:
In a decision that attempts to better define who is protected by New Jersey’s shield law, the court said Shellee Hale’s writings about Too Much Media LLC, which supplies software to online pornography websites, amounted to nothing more than a letter-to-the-editor in a newspaper.
Hale, a former Microsoft employee and a mother of five from Washington state, contended she was acting as a journalist when she posted comments to a message board about a security breach at TMM and allegations that its owners had threatened her. She argued the postings were part of her research into a larger story about the online pornography industry.
The wording of that is actually a bit confusing; but later in the article there’s some clarity. The defendant first posted comments on a message board to research and get information that she planned to later post on her own site. The article paraphrases the judge’s decision this way:
Locascio ruled Hale, who said she intended to publish her findings on her own website, was not a member of the news media because she was not affiliated with a media organization and had not performed roles of a journalist, such as fact-checking.
That first part is quite troublesome: You’re not a journalist if you’re not affiliated with a media organization? Someone needs to define “media organization” and fast, I’d say.
Hyperlocal News Roundup
Happy Sunday! I have a lot of links in this recap, so I’m thinking this will keep you somewhat busy while I keep figuring out how to get started on that hyperlocal SEO series. Enjoy the links!
- Compete, ignore or embrace? How big media can do hyperlocal partnerships right, Neighborlogs
- Newspapers finding success partnering with hyperlocals, Lost Remote
- Groundbreaking partnership with UW’s The Daily, Next Door Media
- Wahoo Newspaper Partners with Hyperlocal WikiCity Guides, PRweb
- Hyperlocal Blogging Tip: Create Unique Content For Long Term Traffic, Blogger Lens
- Widgets for hyperlocal web sites, Journal Local — Philip John started a list of widgets that local bloggers in the UK can use on their sites/blogs as supplemental content. Anyone up for doing a US-version of this list?
- #TAL10, Talk About Local — Mike Rawlins writes a recap of the recent “unconference” on hyperlocal over in the UK
- 8 quick tips for covering the general election in your community, Journal Local
- Starting a Local Site: Creating a Budget, GrowthSpur
- Working with hyperlocal sites: 10 tips for reporters, David Higgerson — This one is written for traditional reporters/media, but should be of interest to all of us to some degree, I think.
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