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12:32 pm
June 10, 2009 |
Daniel Bachhuber
| | | | | Admin | posts 102 |
| | Let's completely rethink the homepage for student newspaper websites. Instead, as Joey says, think of it as a "now" page that offers value dynamically based on who the reader is. I personally do all of my reading through Google Reader or Twitter because those allow me to watch the flow of information as it happens. I recognize that most student newspapers don't produce this much content internally, but that might be a reason for them to link out to other content and have those links on the nowpage. | |
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3:55 pm
June 10, 2009 |
joey
| | Silicon Valley | | | Admin | posts 39 |
| | Heh… you've hit on a pet peeve of mine Daniel – student newsorgs have plenty of information happening – and it's so available for them to use. - There's tons of student groups that want attention and market that on facebook through events and groups – why can't you take that info and post it on your site? Facebook is constantly updating and it's just what you're friends are doing. If 5% of the info from the whole school is good for general consumption, you've got a lot of info to present.
- A hefty chunk of groups want alumni support (monetary) give them an ad package that includes updating you with any event they do. You don't have to write an article, but that data can be presented well.
- There are always events happening on campus. Everyday nearly. You just need to know about them. At a minimum, I bet you can add one new, "event on campus" to your homepage everyday.
- Do what you do best, link to the rest: pull in content from your local newspapers, publish2, ESPN for sports news, relevant articles about college in general (use Publish2!)
etc…  | |
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1:47 pm
June 11, 2009 |
Chris Ullyott
| | Fullerton, CA | | | Member | posts 66 |
| | What I think needs a front-and-center seat on our new homepage are "subscribe" links with RSS and email subscription options. Has anyone had much success with RSS? I can see its potential but I doubt everyone will be rushing to subscribe. Maybe there can be separate RSS feeds based on majors—like if someone is a Business major, they can subscribe all news related to events in their department and get aggregated business news. | |
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7:17 pm
June 11, 2009 |
Andrew Spittle
| | Walla Walla, WA | | | Moderator | posts 49 |
| | @Chris I know that by looking through our stats for the Whitman Pioneer the number of people subscribed heavily favors email subscriptions over RSS. Now, granted I think that's partly because of the placement of our email subscription box in the sidebar, but I think part of it is also due to audience. While we like to think of people as tech-savvy I think that RSS is still far above most people's heads. Most people I know of my parents generations (i.e. the people interested in seeing what's happening at that school they're paying so much money to) don't event know what it is let alone how to use it. The same holds true for people my age who use RSS. Those I know who use it are within the tech/journ. field and not "normal" college kids. Just my observations though. | Andrew – andrew@copress.org – CoPress Hosting Director – http://www.andrewspittle.net |
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3:19 pm
June 12, 2009 |
Chris Ullyott
| | Fullerton, CA | | | Member | posts 66 |
| | Yeah thanks andrew. Having a link to the "today's issue" PDF would probably more of a friendlier thing than RSS. | |
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5:45 pm
July 15, 2009 |
Chris Ullyott
| | Fullerton, CA | | | Member | posts 66 |
| | Here's another thing in case this topic is still kickin—I think we should make it easy for users to know the difference between the "register/ login" areas and the "subscribe" areas. Maybe as we design our site we can boil it down to one link. What can WordPress' "Register/ Login" area really do? Is it just for people who want to post comments without typing in their name each time? We might just drop that whole thing and go with a subscribe-only area. | |
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9:34 pm
July 15, 2009 |
Daniel Bachhuber
| | | | | Admin | posts 102 |
| | The register/login functionality that WordPress offers allows new users to either register for a new account or login to their existing account. It's useful to the general community when you have forums or some other functionality that requires you to login in order to add content or interact. If you've just got comments, then it probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to require users to log in. Akismet is pretty good at catching spam comments in most instances. What type of options are available in the subscribe area? | |
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