Cvillepedia & Charlottesville Tomorrow -Second Thoughts

Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks this is a good idea.

Last week I talked about the Cvillepedia the on-line open source free encyclopedia about the city of Charlottesville and surrounding Albermarle County. It was developed by Charlottesville Tomorrow as another informational asset concerned with the City of Charlottesville and Albermarle County, Virginia.

So what? Well, first off, it's a viable model for many localities. And secondly, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Jerry Del Colliano, in his recent Inside Music Media post "Life After Radio -- 8 New Ideas" said:

If you're a newsperson, writer, community affairs executive or interested in new ways to dispense information in a digital world ...

4. Pick a town or city and become the "news source" for it -- town meetings, crime, anything that goes on in that locale. Put it up on a website and, better yet, add an Apple app that people in that location can carry around on their phones to touch and connect with what's happening close to their homes in real-time. Monetize the app, the website and ancillary income streams that come from owning the franchise for Hoboken, New Jersey or Newport Beach, California or Ames, Iowa. Newspapers wouldn't do it -- they once did regional editions loaded with feature stories. Radio barely does any news. Own a town and get rich with your production, reporting, social networking and Internet skills.

Sound familiar? Charlottesville Tomorrow has the model; they're more than halfway towards creating a franchise that could easily be adopted by other locals (I don't know if that's their plan, but it's possible).

This could just as easily have been a website built by a radio station -- perhaps all-news WINA, which serves the Charlottesville market? It wasn't. Compare WINA's website to Charlottesville Tomorrow's. The difference is profound.

So how does your local radio or newspaper coverage measure up? And how would something like Del Colliano's online news source be received?

- Ralph

Day 43 of the WJMA Podwatch.<

Cvillepedia -- Bringing the Wiki Home

If you live in or around Charlottesville, VA, you should know about the Cvillepedia. If you don't, you should consider constructing a version for where do you live.

The concept's not brand new. But that's alright. It's the content that matters here, and that's where the Cvillepedia's value lies.

Simply put, the Cvillepedia is an on-line open source free encyclopedia about the city of Charlottesville and surrounding Albermarle County. The form, structure, and ethos are modeled after Wikipedia with an important distinction.

Launched by Charlottesville Tomorrow, the stated goal is to

inform and engage the public by providing clear, non-partisan information and research on land use, transportation, and community design issues with the confidence an informed public will make decisions that will protect and build upon the distinctive character of the Charlottesville-Albemarle area.

The exurbs are encroaching from the north (Washington, D.C.), the east (Richmond) and the south (Lynchburg), and Charlottesville itself is flowing outwards into Albermarle. As with many similar communities across the country, critical decisions about growth and development need to be made.

The value of something like the Cvillepedia is that it pulls together all the information, resource lists, and news about core issues into a single place. And as Charlottesville Tomorrow makes very clear, that single place is to be non-partisan. Not pro-growth, or anti-growth; neither liberal nor conservative -- simply a place where all the facts can be examined.

Would that we had something like it where I live.

- Ralph

Day 37 of the WJMA Podwatch.

WJMA's News Podcasts - Baby Steps

WJMA's news podcasts are improving -- but have they improved enough to stop the podwatch?

Well, let's see. They've added an intro to the news podcast, which helps immensely. Not only does it help identify who's talking, and from where, but it also helps with branding. Because of that intro, played five times weekly for subscribers simply reinforces that information -- which makes their news director (and the station) more valuable.

That's the plus.

But what about the rest of it. You expect a radio station to understand how audio works, but as both Mark Ramsey and Jerry Del Colliano have pointed out, a podcast isn't just recycled audio. It's a different media, which has different requirements (and different ways to be used effectively).

The WJMA podcasts still have minimal metadata. No email address; no URL; not even a graphic. All of which still shows a basic lack of understanding of how the podcast medium works -- and that could be a real problem.

Thought experiment: imagine someone with an extensive theater background who, for professional reason, has branched out into video. You view their video -- it's a stage play filmed with a single stationary camera from the center of the auditorium with no cuts. Obviously, that person's still thinking of storytelling in terms of stagecraft, which doesn't have a one-to-one correspondence to video.

Now imagine that same person positioned themselves as a professional videographer and wants to shoot your business' commercial. If they were a family friend, you might give them a chance. But if you didn't know them, you'd probably want to see their work first -- and them what would your decision be?

Piedmont Communications has received clearance to expand further into the Metro Washington market (DCRTV 4/27). And they've positioned themselves as experts in new media. So what do you think will happen when businesses in this highly competitive market start comparing WJMA's claims against their reality?

Sorry, but I'm going to be just as demanding as those potential new customers. The watch goes on.

 - Ralph

Day 37 of the WJMA Podwatch.

Radio/Podcasting -- Not quite the same, Part 2

Shortly after I shared Mark Ramsey's comments about commercial radio and their mishandling of podcasting, Jerry Del Colliano offered up another viewpoint on his blog Inside Music Media. In his post, "7 Trends Radio Missed" he has this to say:

"Podcasting is personal radio -- the kind that the industry flirted with early in its history and has abandoned today... The difference between radio's version of podcasting and the one I think would provide numerous revenue streams to broadcast owners is the ability to make podcasting a franchise.

Radio missed the podcasting revolution because it doesn't know how to make each podcast a franchise -- funded by revenue derived in ancillary ways (not commercials) and grown by viral social networking tools."

And that's been my point with the WJMA News podcasts. They're not repurposed for the new format. There's no on-air promotion (at least that I've heard). There's no branding. Missed opportunities all around.

 - Ralph

Day 30 of the WJMA Podwatch.

Watt's Thoughts - Fixing a Motherboard (with protection)

My new Asus motherboard quit working.  I went to the Asus website for help.  I was a little confused by Step 2, and I wasn't quite sure how that would work.

1. Please clear CMOS.

2. Please take out your memory cards and video card, try to clean their golden connectors with a rubber, then reseat them back.

3. Please take the CPU cooler out, add some thermal paste to the CPU surface, then reseat the cooler back and keep the cooler tightly installed.

4. Please keep the necessary components(CPU, one memory) onboard for a test.
Finally, we would recommend you to replace a BIOS battery to have a test.

I think they meant to use the rubber eraser on pencil to clean the contacts (I've done that often in past and was taught it by a senior mainframe engineer in the 80's.) I hope that's what they meant. However, that is not what they said to do.

I did solve my problem of no keyboard or display finally on another page that instructed me to unplug power, depress power switch on the computer for 10 seconds, and then plug the cable back in and turn on. Asus said it resets power supply. I had never heard that before, but it worked. I had learned a new trick (so I guess I'm not a quite old dog).

Still not sure about that Step 2, though.

- Dwight Watt
from "Watt's Thoughts," available at dwight-watt.home.att.net

Day 27 of the WJMA Podwatch.