The rise of Twitter has been the talk of the tech and media world, and today’s show is about utilizing social media platforms to break news. Hosts Greg Linch and Vanessa Bezic are joined by Craig Kanalley, founder of Breaking Tweets and an adjunct professor at DePaul University, and by Kim Sommers, editor-in-chief of the Whitman Pioneer. Kim has used Twitter to break campus stories — including a bomb threat earlier this year. Check out what they have to say about tweeting breaking news and harnessing the power of Twitter.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think. Be sure to chime in if you have ideas for a future episode, too!

After three months of hard work, the Minnesota Daily has a brand new design to improve its layout and usability. Son Huynh gives us his take on theming Drupal, changing a paper’s workflow and reorganizing news content.

In addition, just last March, the Minnesota Daily teamed up with developers from NewsCloud to create a Facebook application as part of a not-for-profit research study sponsored by the Knight Foundation to find new ways of engaging young people in news readership and community engagement. As an incentive, the Minnesota Daily hosts challenges and implemented a point system to reward active readers with prizes for their participation (such as posting on the Facebook page, tweeting, following the paper on Twitter).

Son also talks about the challenges of building an online community around the paper and his plans to revamp the app by adding Facebook Connect, so users can access the paper while being logged on to Facebook, and a selection on the paper’s site to better connect student groups and campus events. The newest version of the Minnesota Daily is set to launch on Sept 8th. Be sure to check out the new multimedia section, which was in part inspired by the Onion.

Have feedback for the Minnesota Daily? Leave a comment or email Son at shuynh [at] mndaily [dot] com.

Listen live as Online Manager Son Hunyh and others from the Daily’s staff discuss the redesign and their ideas and plans for this year, including tactics to increase readership engagement. Be sure to join our live text chat below and call in to give feedback.

If you’re not able to listen live, please add your question as a comment.

When: Sunday, Aug. 30 at 5 p.m. ET

Where: BlogTalkRadio (or listen here with the embedded player)

Call-in number: (347) 843-4589

The Daily Tar Heel switched to Drupal, Sara Gregory says, because is more compatible with paper’s existing structure, size and content. She’s making online publication simpler by eliminating copy editors and desk editors from the process. Now only one desk level and one management editor read each online story before publication. Thanks to the redesign, readers can now subscribe to two different newsletters (regular and breaking news) and choose from numerous RSS feed options. The paper’s staff also added a new Community Manager position that is responsible for both of the paper’s regular and breaking news Twitter accounts as well as its Facebook account. Gregory’s upcoming projects include incorporating major linking within stories.

Will Davis made the transition to WordPress MU because he wanted The Maine Campus to have a variety of plug-ins and the potential to build a blog community. He set up custom-user permissions so writers post drafts to the Web site as well as a plug-in that emails staff when a draft is posted, cutting down the workflow to just two steps. The site also has a RSS feed for the entire site and newsletter for subscribers. Davis is in the works of launching “Campus Currents,” a user-generated wiki-based community site, and a user-generated restaurant guide. He hopes to integrate more multimedia production and interactivity online in the near future.

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Hosts:

Guests: Jake Paul, Melinda Bardon, and David Estes

Summary: Tuesday’s conversation was all about summer projects. We heard about The Eagle Online‘s plans to move to Expression Engine, Melinda Bardon’s community news website startup based on Dot Net Nuke, and David Estes’ thoughts on a possibly open source iPhone application for the Daily UW. Check out the wiki show notes for more information.

Related forum discussion: Redesigning or redoing your site this summer?

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Guests: Max Cutler and Robert Baskin

Summary: A question and answer session with Courant News, an open source Django CMS for student news organizations. The idea to build a Django CMS specifically for student newspapers came from discussion at an Ivy League news conference last April when people saw that no one had a CMS with the feature set they needed. Max and Robert, along with Paul O’Shannessy, decided they needed to fill the void. The conversation covers a bit of the history, and then goes into the specifics of the CMS. For more information, please check out or add to the wiki show notes.

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Guests: Lauren Rabaino, Web Editor and Marlize van Romburgh, Editor in Chief of The Mustang Daily

Summary: Lauren Rabaino and Marlize Van Romburgh swap stories with Greg and Emily as the four discuss each of their college newspapers transitions to WordPress.

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Guests: Howard Owens (@howardowens), publisher of The Batavian, Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) of The New York Times, and freelance writer Jonathan Fitzpatrick

Summary: Howard Owens and Brian Stelter discuss along with Jonathan Fitzpatrick discuss how to train a web savvy staff, how to wain your readers off the print edition and how staff members should see themselves as circulation managers.

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Guests: Steve Contorno, former editor in chief of the University of Illinois’s The Daily Illini and Zach Valentire, the Webmaster of the Minnesota Daily. Dreier Carr, the photo editor of The Technician at North Carolina State.

Summary: Greg and Emily discuss the power of Drupal and the creation of The Daily Illini‘s own CMS on Drupal with Contorno. The former Editor in Chief continues the conversation by passing on tips to college publications considering Drupal. Valentire and Carr discuss the popularity of Drupal and how it’s no longer something you can ignore. The three editors analyze how the switch can be made, how Drupal can be incorporated into your college newspaper’s workflow, and each of their staffs’ responses to the switch.

Related blog post: A Brand New Drupally Daily Illini

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Guests: Andrew Dunn, the incoming Editor in Chief of UNC’s The Daily Tar Heel (with appearances by Adam Hemphill, Bryan Murley, and Albert Sun)

Summary: Greg and Emily discuss with Andrew The Daily Tar Heel’s upcoming CMS, training staff, and video/audio equipment. In addition, Adam, Bryan and Albert weigh in on college newspapers’ commitment to the web.

Related: Weekly Forum Discussion – Changes Coming to Student Media

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