CoPress

The big news this week was Google’s Eric Schmidt and his speech to the NAA, where he told newspaper executives a rather radical (to them, at least) business model includes “not pissing off the readers.” Of course, the speech was not well received by many new media leaders who wanted Schmidt to take a more of a stance on the AP and newspaper’s reluctance to accept new media.

Around the Network

Discussion in the forum was pretty good this week, with Joey soliciting questions for its FAQ page.

Some interesting questions that are likely to make the list:

• Will you have control of my site’s design or do I get admin access to the back end?
• How long will the transition take from College Publisher to WordPress?
• Is CoPress building a content management system (CMS)?
• How is CoPress different than a CMS, and why is this necessary?
• How did CoPress get started?

Also on the forum, Greg asked what schools are using for e-mail newsletter and alerts. It seems, at least, from responses in the forum that Feedburner is still a common option.

Mo Jangda said, “From a content delivery standpoint, we haven’t really used subscription or newsletter services. I’ve always relied on the idea that FeedBurner has got us covered since it has email email subscription built-in — though I imagine we’d be better served actually publicizing that by having a subscription box in the sidebar of our home page.”

Lauren Rabiano asked a question that addresses a common problem in newspapers everywhere, “How do you deal with people who think backwards (espeically when they’re the people who control your money)? You can’t just ignore them or hope that they’ll “get it” sometime soon. How can you show them and change their minds? And can you do it alone?”

Holly Setter from The Pleiad offered some sound suggests, “The approach I took for getting Pleiad staffers was simply to work at getting them more involved personally on the Web. Our program has centered entirely on the print publication–we didn’t have anyone producing Web exclusive content nor did we have any training in multimedia packaging–so a lot of them were under the impression that it wasn’t important to know. Most weren’t exploring blogging options or social networking sites beyond Facebook (or if they were, it was not with the idea of using them for journalism). My basic idea was that if I could get them to use the available media for themselves, it’d be less scary to incorporate it into the newsroom.”

Let’s keep the forum flowing with questions, comments and concerns! Don’t be afraid! Feel free to add your two cents!

On the wiki, Emily updated the Ideal CMS Feature List with the CoPress team’s ideas on how to better implement your workflow and improve your overall system. Feel free add your own ideas. The more people who contribute, the more comprehensive the list can become.

In the News

Last but not least, here are some links from the past week that you should check out this weekend (via the CoPress Publish2 Newsgroup):

• Video and Small College Newspapers – Andrew Spittle of the Whitman Pioneer asks how a one-man tech team can better implement video onto their Web site.
• Top 10 business mistakes that newspapers must avoid as they go online-only – The Online Journalism Review encourages getting customer feedback, searching for alternative advertising solutions, among countless other innovative ideas.
• AP Fighting Last Century’s Battles – Interesting look on how the AP could lead the charge in internet news syndication, rather than holding onto a model that no longer exists.
• Citizen Journalism Publishing Standards – A unique list on citizen journalism editorial standards posted by The Huffington Post.
• About the Pleiad – Holly Setter announces that her college newspaper The Pleiad will now be moving exclusively online