Sentinel.com blog

We started a partnership yesterday with Santa Cruz Waves. This comes after bumping into great photo after great photo from Tyler Fox’s website on Facebook and Twitter, and then some exchanges about possibilities, and a couple face-to-face meetings. The idea is that we help Santa Cruz Waves promote a uniquely Santa Cruz site, we share some of their work with our audience (more than 5 million visitors in 2011), and help them grow.

The goal of this partnership is to become the world-wide authority on all things surf in Santa Cruz – led by Santa Cruz Waves, supported by us.

It’s exactly the kind of partnership we’re going to pursue in a variety of areas. Photo and content sharing is a start, business and revenue possibilities are part of the discussion. We plan to collaborate in coverage of big events and on breaking news at the beach. We’ll also regularly run Santa Cruz Waves photos in the print edition.

The reason this makes so much sense to us is Tyler Fox. Read his profile. But also, check out the photos and his site.

Interested in similar types of content sharing and exploring the possibilities? Send me a note and/or join the Santa Cruz Community Media Lab.

In the past week, we’ve noticed a good handful of people expressing good feelings, through their social media accounts, about being covered in the Sentinel. We’re going to gather together those tweets and posts and watch the collection grow over time.

For the purposes of this project, we’re probably more likely to find people who are pleased with our coverage, although we realize that’s not always the case.

Want to get our attention? Use this hashtag: #iwasinthesentinel

The following is one of our favorite  letters to the editor of all time.

Bring Buddha back

I live on the Lower Westside. For many years a green, medium size plaster Buddha has been sitting in my front yard facing east and watching the sun rise for me as I am rarely awake that early.

Friday morning, I went outside to find that my Buddha was gone, taken Thursday night I presume. I am concerned about the person who took him. Perhaps they are not aware of the cosmic law that is, whomever shall purloin another person’s Buddha is developing for themselves some seriously bad Karma. Trust me, no one wants that. Therefore, I suggest that you divest yourself of negativity and bring back Buddha immediately. Thank you.

John Morris, Santa Cruz

Online readers, including the Buddha-kidnapper, you may be able restore balance in the universe. Can you bring back this Buddha?

We’re working to be always accessible, to connect and partner with the informed people throughout the community, and to report on the issues that matter most to Santa Cruz County.

As a small part of that effort, we’ve added a “Be a source” link to every article online. Look for it on the right hand side of articles next to ‘report and error’ and ‘submit news.’

If you would like to be considered a contact for the Sentinel news staff, take a minute to fill out our form.

We appreciate it!

Related story: Taunts, graffiti add up near Pleasure Point home

Posted from .

It doesn’t happen often, but we like our thunder and lightning when it comes around in Santa Cruz.

Posted from .

The iPad is becoming a bigger part of everything we do in the news world.

More people are using it to consume news. More people are using it for social sharing. More people are using it for web browsing, and if you want to show anyone photos of your kids, there’s nothing better.

More people are finding the iPad takes the place of a desktop computer, or a laptop computer. And the iPad’s productivity tools continue to get better.

When the Sentinel offered a plan for employees to buy iPads through a payroll deduction, we wound up with a stack of 26 of them that were handed out last month.

How are reporters using them?

Well, they’re learning. They’re working on typing stories into Google docs and sending them back to the desk (pro tip – work through the Google search app, rather than the browser). They’re working on photo sharing on Twitter and Instagram through the iPad. They’re exploring apps like Evernote (for note taking with multimedia) and Dragon Dictation. They’re looking at photo editing tools through Photoshop Express, video editing with iMovie.
They’re getting their own news through Flipboard and Zite.
They’re looking at Storify as a way of gathering social reaction to events.
They’re looking at AP news.
They’re checking out Cloud On (for accessing excel and Word files).

Sentinel reporters Shanna McCord and Jason Hoppin browse through app stores for iPad and iPhone and talk about productivity tools for journalists.

My advice for journalists – be curious. Imagine how your audience is getting your work and try to shorten the distance between you and the reader. Imagine how the audience of the future will receive your work, and meet them there. I think a lot of reporters are thinking they report, write, send to an editor, who sends to page designer, the story prints and somehow winds up on our website. There are a million ways for reporters and editors to improve you own brand, improve your own digital skills, improve the information you receive about your beat, and serve the audience. With regard to the iPad, it contains all the tools needed to perform your daily work in the journalism world. Consider taking a day to cover your beat using only that tool – progress on the learning curve will be worth the effort.

Make a point of seeing what’s possible for readers, and of thinking about how you can help create that experience for your own readers.

Here are a few of the apps you may find helpful:

• Twitter, a must for being informed and breaking news
• Storify – for collecting and re-sharing social media and other links
• Evernote – multimedia note taking in the cloud
• Dragon Dictation
• Photoshop Express – photo editing
• Instagram- social photo sharing
• iMovie – video editing
• AP mobile – breaking news from Associated press
• iA Writer – simple writing template
• Zite, Flipboard, Feedly – readers
• Google – if you’ve been a gmailer and fan of google’s productivity tools, use the app, where applications and services are optimized

Other suggestions: Here’s a discussion in Quora (thanks @ivanlajara): What are the best iPad apps for journalists?

We all welcome your tips.

Posted from Los Altos, California, United States.

The city of Capitola is going to consider allowing dogs on the beach. A public hearing is planned for Thursday, April 12. We want your opinion:

See related story: Dogs on the beach? Capitola council seeking public input Thursday

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March 2012 was the second biggest month for page views for the Sentinel website ever.

We had 3,612,051 views – only March 2011 (including tsunami coverage) had more views (3,804,403) . We had 476,986 unique monthly visitors last month, close to our average the past year.

Mobile apps
We launched our mobile news apps in February, but didn’t promote heavily until the beginning of March. We had 224,095 page views and 2,921 downloads of Android and iPhone apps.

Most-viewed stories for March:

1. Crews fight off San Lorenzo River to save Boardwalk
2. San Lorenzo River water running next to the Boardwalk
3. Live Oak murder victim had criminal past; motive for shooting unknown
4. 2011 Cabrillo College salary database
5. Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2012 Hook, Line and Sinker
6. Fatal wreck on Highway 17 backs up traffic for hours
7. Students rally at Occupy Education demonstration; man drives car through crowd
8. A little country, a little Santa Cruz: Former resident Joy Williams enjoys musical success
9. Doctors look for reason for 7-year-old’s sudden blindness
10. Police: 15-year-old arrested after hitting a Santa Cruz grocery store

Video stats for March (thanks Christina Gullickson):

Total video views via YouTube: 22,860

Top 10 videos, views:

1. Cat found in engine compartment of a car, 8,325
2. Slug blocks road leading up to UCSC campus, 1,451
3. Kevin Koch talks about saving neighbor from fire in Santa Cruz, 1,149
4. Tsunami hits Santa Cruz Harbor, 1,058
5. Off-season update with Dwight Lowery, 1,041
6. Illegal fireworks, 855
7. Truck stuck in Capitola, 689
8. Man tries to pay parking tickets with pennies, 547
9. Big surf in Santa Cruz, Jan. 5, 2012, 512
10. James Durbin: Love Me Bad, behind the scenes from video shoot, 423

We also had about another 3,800 views in Brightcove, which hosts our videos on our home page.

And one of our most successful reader experiences is through Flickr, where we had more than 220,000 views in March.

Thanks for all the staff’s hard work, and thanks for visiting!
- Tom

Posted from Santa Cruz, California, United States.