This blog always feels half-built, and one of the main reasons is that just as I get going, something happens and I start all over. Very little momentum. Last weekend I was sick, and all the work I had planned has now been delayed or been cut shorter than I would have liked. Still, I like what’s going on at the HeraldTrib, and I’m still learning the ropes of the new site.
Comments thus far on the new site have been generally positive, and I thought I’d respond to a couple just to let people know what’s going on here.
BobArlington asked: “Why did you switch to the new Blog vendor? What's better about this service?”
A couple things. First, it allows for more stories per page and allows me to post a story to the top of the front page while simultaneously posting another to the “more stories” page. In Google’s Blogger (the old site), I had to remember to post stories in the correct order so that the most important ended up at the top of the page by the end of the day.
Mainly, though, I was looking for a service that could host my new web address (buckinghamheraldtrib.com) and give me some space to sell ads.
That Neighborlogs, the host, has a hyper-local attitude (it’s all the rage in journalism), and a decent news sense, is even better. The business model that I’m working on hasn’t really been tried on-line, as far as I know. My model focuses on local businesses looking for foot traffic: lawyers, doctors, restaurants, stores, etc. We’ll see how it works over the next year, or so.
Finally, Neighborlogs is a new company that allows actual humans to speak with users such as myself when we bloggers get stuck on something. The people at Neighborlogs have been great, and I am having fun helping this new company figure out where the glitches are.
A perfect example: they created an “Aggregator” for the site—an aggregator collects (i.e.: “aggregates,” get it?) new posts from various web sites of my choosing and runs the first paragraph of each on my site with a link to the original site. (Check out Local Headlines, above.)
On it now: Chez Robert Giron, Arlington Yuppette, Ode Street Tribune, WashPost Arlington, and Anaflog. I’d include the Sun Gazette and the Arlington Connection, but they do not use “RSS” software which allows aggregators to aggregate sites. I put the Examiner on there, but all their content—and there is a lot—is on the same feed, so regional and national news was getting mixed in with the “local headlines” and I do not need that. I didn’t include sites like BlueNoVa and The Green Miles because they are concerned as much with the state and nation as they are with Arlington, although they're written by Arlingtonians.
The Glitch: although there are thousands of headlines already posted to that page, we can only see the first page. Neighborlogs is working on it. What this means for you is that you have to check my site daily and hit the Local Headlines page a lot or else you miss out!
MIL wrote: “The print seems smaller here than on the [original] blog and I have to squint to read it. OK, I'm old, but I can still read without squinting. I found it harder to follow the story when I had to lean in to this desktop screen.”
For now anyway, and unfortunately, you’ll just have to hold the “ctrl” (or “apple”) key and hit the “+” key to make the font bigger. The problem deals with the coding inside the Neighborlog software. The “cascading style sheet,” as it is called, needs to be changed, and though I have been told how to do this by one of the nice humans at HQ, I have had neither time nor confidence to try it, yet.
Rebecca Krafft (who lives in Douglas Park, I believe), wrote: “Seriously, I would love to see coverage like yours for every neighborhood in Arlington. Thanks for consistently informative reading.”
Thanks! And, you're welcome!
