Enhanced KnowNews...now even better with multimedia!

Enhanced KnowNews This was a fun assignment, but I gained a new appreciate for folks that design multimedia objects for a living.  Online news articles often include associated photos, slideshows, or videos to enhance the article.  I wanted to include a video that offers audience engagement to watch the video, have them answer some rhetorical questions, and hopefully gain interest in becoming a citizen journalist or blogger for KnowNews. I used traditional options of Word and PowerPoint to create the static shots.  I used Jing in conjunction with Screencast-o-matic to create the video, primarily because they offer basic multimedia options and I’ve never produced anything like this before.  Ideally, the video would be positioned in the top, right corner of the article, but I wanted to publish to see if it actually worked first…and it does!    The multimedia element enhances the article by offering the audience engagement, entertainment (well, I tried), information about the WhatMatters session. ______________________________________   KnowNews is Good News! Journalists and citizens working together

FREDERICK MD, Nov. 10, 2013/KnowNews/- KnowNews is looking for citizen journalists and community members to be involved in developing quality news for the Frederick area.

The KnowNews team is comprised of professional journalists that are dedicated to upholding journalism ethics. As a progressive group, we believe that an innovative, collaborative effort among journalists—both professional and citizen-- will develop insightful, quality articles. KnowNews values your experience and expertise, and we invite you to partner with us. We want to hear your ideas what news is, how you want to receive it, and what you think is important to cover.

KnowNews will be holding weekly sessions entitled “What Matters” for those interested in being citizen journalists and bloggers. The sessions are designed to gain input from members of the community regarding local news coverage. The sessions aren’t just about news. They are designed to solicit your ideas about the purpose of KnowNews, the service it provides to the community, and the questions you want answered. As citizen journalists and bloggers for KnowNews, you will learn how we aim to be a role model in upholding the basic code of journalist ethics-- seek truth and report it; minimize harm; act independently; be accountable. We encourage you to consider becoming part of the KnowNews team. For more information, email LShea@KnowNews.com.

About KnowNews KnowNews is a collaborative news effort of journalists and community members.

Contact: Linda Shea, Journalist KnowNews Phone: 301-555-1212 LShea@KnowNews.com www.KnowNews.com Sources: Code of Ethics. (2013). Retrieved from Society of Professional Journalists: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: how to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York: Bloomsbury USA.

On "Life After Tampons"

“Life After Tampons” (subtitled “Quit your Bitching.  Change Your Life.”) is a blog that was recommended to me by a friend.  The blog is an entertaining mix of the author’s anecdotes, experiences, advice, and self-help recommendations.  The blog is designed for women, specifically middle-aged (ouch!) women.  Author Jennifer Boykin refers to herself as the “Midlife Midwife” (2013).  In analyzing the blog, it has definite strengths in engaging subject matter and substance.  However, it could use some improvement in its functionality and reader interaction.

The blog’s name was an attention-getter for one of my friends.  As a result, she navigated to the blog and read a bit of it.  She then forwarded it on to a number of us who enjoyed the material content as well---mostly because we could identify with many of the experience described by Boykin.   Her topics are timely and familiar.  They include discussions on family life, divorce, friendships, holidays.  Boykin has an innovative way of describing basic life situations and challenges as opportunities for empowerment.  

The overall website design is somewhat paradoxical.  The header background and header text font appears to be cultured and proper, almost Victorian in style with hearts and wings.  In the middle of the illustrated femininity is the very bold blog title and subtitle.  The look of the web pages could stand improvement.  There is very little consistency among font size, font color, bolding, usage of all capital letters.  Perhaps the “thrown together look” is what Boykin was going for, but from a reader’s perspective, I found it difficult to focus on the content while I was sorting through the array of colors and fonts on a single page.   I found that the blog dates back to 2011, but the “Archives” drop down is hidden at the bottom of each page, amidst a very distracting collection of contemporary links, widgets, and a sidebar of recommended articles.

Boykin includes links to Facebook, Twitter, web feed and has widgets to “like” “tweet” “Pin it” and “share” accessible on every page of the site.  However, I noticed there are very few reader comments on the site, and no widget that counts the number of visitors to a site, making it difficult to determine blog traffic.  One of the recommended best practices of blogging is to “install google web analytics” to measure traffic (Chelidonis, 2013).  There was no obvious “search” bar to be found, so looking up even known archives would be difficult because archives are listed by date only.

Overall, I found “Life After Tampons” enjoyable because of the content and Boykin’s entertaining style of writing.  Her writing technique is appealing to her target audience of middle-aged women with shared life experiences.  The blog fulfills its mission in providing information, shared story-telling that its audience can identify with.  However, from a technical and functional perspective, there are improvements that would benefit the blog and its readers.  A search function should be included, to allow readers the ability to search for archive blogs by subject and keywords.  A cleaner design, with limited choices, would help to lessen the existing distraction of the variety of fonts and typeface characteristics currently used.  I see “Life After Tampons” as a blog with much potential and hope Jennifer Boykin considers the technical upgrades needed to best showcase her substantive writing talent.

 

Sources:

Boykin, Jennifer. (2013). Retrieved from Life After Tampons: http://www.lifeaftertampons.com/

Chelidonis, I. (2013). 12 Steps to Launch a Successful Blog. Retrieved from Daily Blog Tips: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/steps-to-successful-blog/

"KnowNews" is Good News

KnowNews is Good News! Journalists and citizens working together

FREDERICK MD, Nov. 10, 2013/KnowNews/- KnowNews is looking for citizen journalists and community members to be involved in developing quality news for the Frederick area.

The KnowNews team is comprised of professional journalists that are dedicated to upholding journalism ethics. As a progressive group, we believe that an innovative, collaborative effort among journalists—both professional and citizen-- will develop insightful, quality articles. KnowNews values your experience and expertise, and we invite you to partner with us. We want to hear your ideas what news is, how you want to receive it, and what you think is important to cover.

KnowNews will be holding weekly sessions entitled “What Matters” for those interested in being citizen journalists and bloggers. The sessions are designed to gain input from members of the community regarding local news coverage. The sessions aren’t just about news. They are designed to solicit your ideas about the purpose of KnowNews, the service it provides to the community, and the questions you want answered. As citizen journalists and bloggers for KnowNews, you will learn how we aim to be a role model in upholding the basic code of journalist ethics-- seek truth and report it; minimize harm; act independently; be accountable. We encourage you to consider becoming part of the KnowNews team. For more information, email LShea@KnowNews.com.

About KnowNews KnowNews is a collaborative news effort of journalists and community members.

Contact: Linda Shea, Journalist KnowNews Phone: 301-555-1212 LShea@KnowNews.com www.KnowNews.com Sources: Code of Ethics. (2013). Retrieved from Society of Professional Journalists: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp Kovach, B., & Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: how to know what's true in the age of information overload. New York: Bloomsbury USA.