Sentinel.com blog

When 15,000-plus runners came to Santa Cruz on Sunday for the 40th annual Wharf to Wharf race, we were ready to meet them. We received more than 40,000 page views on the Sentinel website.

We put to use the following services:

• Twitter – asking any and all to use #wharftowharf hashtag, we added that to the page for continuous updates. Our reporters and photographers also used the tag. Through twitter, we posted photos and video (using the twitvid service) as well as other updates. We were also able to send directly to the Sentinel home page by using another tag, #scsnews. We’ve used an advanced search widget to display tweets from our staff using that tag and always ask reporters to break news on twitter.
• Storify – we gathered photos, video, tweets from our staff, runners and spectators throughout the day, and embedded the collection in the top of our home page. Our collection has received more than 4,000 views. (See below).
• Flickr – We posted staff and contributed photos to the Sentinel Flickr account, where our set has received more than 6,500 views. We took the easily-embedded slideshow and dropped it into coverage and its own article page. We also shared links to the slideshow on Facebook
• Google maps – We updated a map we built long ago to include Panoramio photos from various points along the beautiful race route, shot by Sentinel digital intern Eric Brown.
• Brightcove and YouTube – We shot video along the route. I got to the race early with a smart phone and a Handycam. I tweeted, collected video, sent photos from my phone (DroidX, which went from fully charged to dead in two miles) and then eventually ran most of last four miles of the race (with my daughter in a stroller) while collecting sights and sounds on the Handycam. We posted the video to our site through Brightcove, embedded the video in an article page and have Brightcove set to automatically post to our YouTube channel.
• Instagram (we’re @scsentinel) – we posted just five photos to Instagram, a couple from the race, and a couple of the best from photographer Shmuel Thaler.  We also liked every photo we found for Wharf to Wharf and followed anyone who ran and posted about the race. Our photos received more than 200 likes, we picked up more than 50 followers.
• Digital producer Christina Gullickson orchestrated the show, handling all of the content flowing her way, and she worked to open the doors to user-contributed photos and promoted all our content on the social channels above.
• Sports reporter Andrew Matheson also immediately had final results and compiled his own video, so we had the first stories about the race that were updated in the afternoon
• Two other easy moves added nearly 5,000 views – we posted an early “Wharf to Wharf Information” page and we embedded the results page within our site.

Congrats to all the runners! We probably overdid, but the Sentinel loves the Wharf to Wharf!

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 Sentinel website continued to grow at a strong pace in 2011. Here’s a quick rundown of the year-end statistics:

• We increased page views: 38,168,835 in 2012, up slightly from 38,090,454 in 2010.

In changing commenting systems in late 2010, we no longer required readers to make an extra click to get to story comments. We did away with more than 2.5 million page views because of it, but readers stayed on our pages longer, were more clearly responsible for their comments and our staff was better able to manage the abusive comments and spend more time on making the most of the news.

• We increased unique annual visitors to 5,081,707. That’s up more than 1 million from 4,036,868 in 2010.

We think unique visitors is a better measure than page views in the past year (because the growth is bigger!) and because of the comment change. But data also shows that people are coming to the Sentinel on multiple devices. We launched an e-edition app for iPad in 2011 and we’re launching a news app in 2012.

We also had several big events (the tsunami and Capitola floods) and a couple of viral moments (a story about pot in soda) that brought in a healthy chunk of one-time visitors.

• Through our Brightcove video account, we had 166,529 video plays. On YouTube, we had 519,501.

Video will become a bigger part of everything we do online as it becomes easier to upload, edit and share on mobile devices. We also added a GoPro camera at year’s end, and we hope to do cool things with it. Still seeking daredevils of all sorts to wear the camera.

• We expect to continue to grow and continue to emphasize digital products in 2012.

The Sentinel online staff has added a great producer, Christina Gullickson, and the newsroom staff’s pace of change is accelerating. The company is (still) working on a new content management system that will help us with everything from design to commenting to page creation to print workflow and multi-platform presentations.

Want to get more involved with the Sentinel website? We’ve got internships, a community connections section in development and we’re open to all kinds of collaborations to connect our audience with good ideas around Santa Cruz. Contact us!

Posted from Santa Cruz, California, United States.

Recently, we got a rare new piece of gear, but with all the things we’re trying to get done, we haven’t put it to a lot of use.

The gear: A GoPro camera with a variety of straps and snap-on devices that will allow it to go far and wide. We sent it snowboarding in Tahoe on its first trip, which was a learning experience. We’re still trying to get some of the adhesive off of sports editor Julie Jag’s snowboard.

We don’t have a lot of video to show for that trip. Cops reporter and surfer Stephen Baxter has been our next volunteer, and along with his friend Emlyn Stokes captured about 45 seconds of usable footage from their surf trip on New Year’s Day, 2012.

We’re going to keep taking the camera out, until we break it, sink it, lose it, or actually get some cool shots. Here’s our first effort. We’re learning, and we’ll keep adding to this playlist on YouTube. Want to take this camera to a skate park, zip line trip, around the world, or on a motorcycle ride or parachute jump? Let us know. We’re up for it, if you are willing to sign the right waivers.

On Monday, we launched the Santa Cruz e-Edition for the iPad.

It’s a great way to read the Sentinel print edition on the iPad, sparing trees and ink. The app is free, the e-Edition subscription costs a dollar a week, and there’s a free trial period.

We have a wide variety of projects in the works, including a re-design of the Sentinel site, a new content management system project, a re-examination of all things we do digital, both in advertising and the newsroom.

The new content management system is intended to improve our workflow, give us better tools for presenting a wider variety of content, including video, documents, databases, audio, and photos. It will also allow us to be more location-based, connecting readers with what’s happening in their neighborhoods. We’ll be able to publish content more efficiently to more platforms, focusing more on tablets and smartphones.

We’ll have better tools for reader registration and better tools for allowing you to determine where, when and how you read your news from Santa Cruz. The change also includes a better commenting system (no longer through Facebook),

And, not least important, we’re told the upgrade will help the site load quicker. Stay tuned for more updates.

But if you love your iPad, the e-Edition app is worth checking out and exploring. As always, let us know what you think. – Tom

Posted from Los Altos, California, United States.

Here are the 10 most-viewed stories or pages from Monday, Sept. 13, 2011:

1. Deputies: Two arrested in Live Oak after accosting man walking with family
2. Autopsy results show slain Santa Cruz attorney Celestial Cassman died of asphyxiation
3. Teen girl robbed at gunpoint in Soquel
4. Cops and Courts: Sept. 12, 2011: Two arrested after man is accosted
5. Deputies: Two arrested in Live Oak after accosting man walking with family
6. Capitola bank robbed by man claiming to have a bomb
7. Most Wanted suspects surrender in Santa Cruz
8. Database: Santa Cruz County pension obligations, 2011
9. Retired accountant who was in south tower on 9/11: ‘The buildings shook like an earthquake’
10. Orin Martin, Santa Cruz County Stories

Link of the Day: We’re adding football highlight video to this YouTube playlist throughout the season. Assistant Sports Editor Jim Seimas has been great about gathering several clips and uploading them from each game he covers. You’ll see more of this as smart phones get better, video editing tools get easier and we think more about using all available tools for storytelling.

We’ve heard from plenty of readers that they were interested in an iPad/iPhone app for the Sentinel and we’re working on various possibilities locally. (Want to help? let us know.) And at the same time, there are a variety of corporate strategies in the works for tablet users.

The coolest out there, and the biggest jump forward in technology is a product called TapIn Bay Area, which was launched this week.

You’ll see more of TapIn on our site, but it’s optimized for the touch screen. It’s hyperlocal and regional at the same time. It integrates news, advertising, deals, events, a business directory and user content, and is easily navigatable and searchable and gamified.

Here are a few links to reviews of the new app. Free trials here. (It will cost $4.99/month in the future).

• Ken Doctor: MediaNews’ new TapIn bets on the tablet
• From Poynter: How TapIn plans to master location-based news for the iPad
• From Street Fight: Local news + Google Maps + Social Media = TapIn

You’ll find Sentinel written stories and events from our online calendar all over the Santa Cruz map, but most of the links will send you to the Mercury News version of our content. (We’ll see if we can fix that).

Everywhere we turn, our enthusiasm for gadgets, especially smart phones seems to be growing. Is it just me?

I have a beat-up Blackberry that has been a great friend. I’ve bounced it off a lot of pavement. I took pictures of my newborn daughter with it. It wakes me up in the morning, sends me messages all day. I tweet with it, browse with it, take fuzzy video, get directions, occasionally even take a phone call.

But I’m upgrading to a Droid X in a couple weeks. I’m just one of the herd, according to today’s article by the Mercury News’ Mike Swift. According to the article, Android operating systems by google are on the verge of catching Blackberry, but the most interesting stat was the survey that showed 71 percent of people pondering their next smart phone purchase are leaning toward Android.

Mercury News graphic

We’ve got an informal poll that’s been running for a few days on the Sentinel home page. With apologies to Blackberry, which announced the ‘Torch 9800‘ today, we asked if the future of smart phones belonged to iPhone or Droid. Voters as of Tuesday afternoon leaned toward Droid – 384 votes to 323.

Right now, a certain Sentinel editor is puzzling over his new iPhone 4, trying to hook up his work e-mail. Another supervisor is considering whether he can drop all cable service and get internet and all the TV he needs through the Droid X.

The possibilities for smart phones and the newsroom are endless. From immediate scene-to-web photos, to easy streaming video, to twitter updates, to live conversations, video chat, audio recordings directly to the site. We’re thinking about all of the above.

We also want your help – if you’ve got a breaking news picture – send it our way. E-mail sentinelnewsroom@gmail.com. If you’ve got video sports highlights, we’d love to share it.

Want to help us build a Sentinel app for iPhone, iPad, Droid? We’re interested in partnerships.

I’ll miss the Blackberry Pearl. I feel like I’m trading in a beloved car.

Tom Moore's beat up Blackberry.