Wednesday, January 04, 2012

I’m in the early stages of developing the mobile site prototype for RichmondConfidential.org, the hyperlocal news site. I will use  this site for testing before implementing similar mobile sites to the other hyperlocal news sites we run here at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

In order for a developer to be able to implement some of the features, we need to rewrite a lot of the backend in HTML5. That should be done by mid-January. My developer is already working with the CalPress WordPress theme that the hyperlocals run on to determine how best to implement a mobile site.

The features and functionality for Richmond Confidential are locked in and agreed upon. They are a little different than what I originally proposed but better suit the needs of the site's audience. Our goal is to not only have a great mobile site, but to add functionality to RichmondConfidential.org as well so that people will continue to come back to our site. We aim to be the main news source for all things in Richmond, California. 

There are three components to the mobile site:

• A readable news site on mobile devices. The newest five stories will automatically save locally to the phone, so you’ll be able to read them on the go. To resize the text (often, as a user I find it so annoying when the text is too small), a user will simply spread their fingers to size up to three gradations larger. The sharing options will be Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and Instapaper.

We had originally wanted to save specifically to the user, but determined it was not worth the resources or server space that feature would require. Users who are used to saving stories for later often use things like Instapaper, which has an open API, so it should be easy for us to implement. We can always build out more sharing options later.

• A community event calendar. It might sound fundamental, but Richmond Confidential doesn’t have one, and the audience needs one. Ideally, we can start introducing a user-generated content element, such as Tackable, to engage more with the community. This is a feature we’ve been asked for repeatedly, and really makes sense on mobile. We’ll show the events of the day in order of time, you’ll see directions and how far they are. We’ll link to public transportation options as well. This is one of the features that will keep people coming back to the site.A list of the “best that Richmond has to offer.”

• Originally, we were going to go with restaurant health-inspection reports, use geolocation and show you what near you is a sanitary place for you to eat.This idea really works well with the other two hyperlocals and is something we will probably explore in the future when translating the project to the other sites.

However, Richmond Confidential tries really hard to report on the positive things happening in Richmond, partially because the only time the city gets major news coverage is when something horrible happens. It’s a traditionally under-served community that is always cast in a bad light. The health-inspection report didn’t seem like a strong fit here.

After talking to the reporters and editors, we decided to create a geolocated list of the best “places” in Richmond -- the best restaurants, hiking trails, etc. The idea is that if you’re in Richmond and you don’t know what to do, you’ll go to this part of the mobile site and it will show you what’s nearby. You’ll be able to sort by category as well. This is very similar to Yelp. We’re getting a lot of community input on what the best activities in Richmond are. We’ll also include a link to give us feedback if we’ve missed a great local spot.

I’ve used some of the money to hire the developer. The majority of the funds will go to him upon completion of the project. I’ve also put aside some of the funds for a user- interface designer to help with the flow of mobile websites and applications. 



Each feature is being developed as a WordPress plugin, so transferring the functionality between these sites will be no issue.



I’d like to get my working prototype up in late February and start beta testing in March. We will continue to tweak the design and functionality as long as necessary. 



The next big step is to work out mobile advertising on the sites. Berkeley has recently hired Dave Cohen, founder of Spot.us, to help the hyperlocals figure out how to become more sustainable. This is particularly important since the grants that fund the hyperlocals will end this school year. Originally, I wanted to get local businesses to advertise with the hyperlocal sites, but this requires more manpower than we currently have. 


Thursday, December 01, 2011

It’s been about a month since my last post, so I’ll do several over the next week to make up for it.

I wanted to note that though I originally thought I was going to create a more interactive site for Oakland North first, I’m going to go with Richmond Confidential. Let’s explain my rationale …

At the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, we run three hyperlocal news websites: Mission Local, Oakland North and Richmond Confidential. Mission Local has a ton of traffic and content, but for my first project there are just too many content streams I would have to consider. Richmond Confidential has the smallest amount of traffic and content, since it is one of the newest sites. Oakland North seemed like a good middle ground to create/tweak my mobile site with.

Then, there was the roadblock.

For the geolocation portion of the mobile site, I really wanted to create a database of health inspection scores from local restaurants and also tag articles we had written about them. This fits because Oakland, particularly the north Oakland and Temescal areas, are becoming quite the foodie neighborhoods. If there was no article, then just the basic information about the restaurant, the distance from where you were and probably the Yelp rating would show up.

I strongly believe in creating usable features on news sites, in addition to having great content. Give people reasons to see your news organization as an authority, the place to go to find what information you want/need. It’ll give you an edge over slower-moving news sites. Besides, any reason to get people to come back to your site is a good one. (Before anyone makes cracks about fluffy kittens and porn, it’s obvious that I mean appropriate content).

Oakland North was convinced that I was trying to force it to write up content on restaurants. It also wanted to switch to bar reviews, which they do a few of. I feel like there are a lot of bar apps out there already, so we wouldn’t be adding anything to our users’ experience.

This new feature wouldn’t create work for the editors or writers. It would add functionality to the news site. This is information that we (journalists) have access to that our audience might find interesting and useful, especially on mobile devices.

The other feature I wanted to add was an event calendar. The idea is that you would be in Oakland and want something to do. The events would show up that were happening soon and you would be able to see where they were, how to get there and some basic information about the event. Oakland North, which currently publishes a weekend event calendar, said feeding this kind of event calendar, even if they just used the events they already put in their event section, would be too much work.

I can understand the hesitation from the Oakland North editors. We expect them to do a lot already, and I can see how the thought of doing ANYTHING more could be overwhelming. And I admire and respect how the priority of the news site is to be a teaching tool to the j-school students. I remember last year they fought against writing up a small post on “the adoptable animal of the week” because even though it was a traffic booster, it didn’t serve a purpose to the student reporters. At the same time, it’s not clear if the Ford Foundation grants for these hyperlocals will be renewed, and the j-school wouldn’t have hired Dave Cohen, aka DigiDave from Spot.us, if it wasn’t interested in these sites becoming at least somewhat sustainable.

Though I still plan to roll out a better, more readable mobile site for the hyperlocals, I’ve decided to go with Richmond Confidential. I am pretty happy with this change for several reasons. One of them being that Bob Calo, the head honcho of the news site, is willing to let me do anything. He is kind of awesome like that.

Richmond is a traditionally underserved and underrepresented community. There isn’t really a news service that covers Richmond, meaning that the few times the city does get covered, it’s not in a good way. Richmond Confidential is really the only news organization that covers the city. Though it’s true that Richmond has its share of problems, Richmond Confidential tries to cover the good that’s happening in the community as well. Take a look yourself.

Richmond, as you may not be surprised to hear, is NOT a foodie town. So my health inspection scores idea didn’t seem to fit with this hyperlocal. It’s important not to make cool toys for the sake of having cool toys; they have to be useful too. It took me a while to think about what would fit with Richmond Confidential’s mission (to show the positives going on in Richmond [not that it doesn’t also report the negatives]). After talking to the editors and reporters, we have decided to go with a “best of” location-based functionality. Reporters will be getting community input on the best things in Richmond: the best food, the best trails, the best parks, etc. They planned to write up articles on this anyway. Since these things are location based, instead of just writing an article or three that would get lost in the stream, we’re going to geo-tag things. When you’re in Richmond and you want something fun to do, you’ll go to this HTML 5 webapge, which will show you what activities and landmarks are close to you. You’ll be able to sort by category and send feedback to Richmond Confidential if you feel like they’ve missed the best thing about Richmond. We’re still integrating the event calendar, and I’ll throw some mock-ups of the content side of the news site redesigned for mobile.

Lastly, I’m hiring a UI designer/developer to make this responsive design. That way, if I have time, I can just code up some CSS for tablet sizes and have the site work not only on mobile, but tablet as well.

More to come soon, promise.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

I’ve been playing around with Balsamiq, trying to play with different ways to play with a mobile site. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from everywhere. I particularly love The Boston Globe responsive redesign.

I was lucky enough to go to ONA this year and listen to Ethan Marcotte talk about what responsive redesign actually is. The reason I’ve gone with a mobile site as opposed to an App is that it simply isn’t feasible for the majority of news organizations to create an app that works with every single tablet and smartphone out there. I love some of the customizations you can do on an app, but for me it’s simply a matter of resources.

The thing that blew me away about Marcotte’s presentation is that almost nothing is defined by pixels. Every section is basically defined in percentages. But obviously, you can’t just resize content for a desktop and a smartphone and expect good results. That’s why Marcotte detects the pixel width (not the device) of your screen, whatever you’re on, and displays content accordingly. There aren’t 10 different designs for the 10 different devices, there are maybe three. He sets the breaking points for each design by pixel. If you want to read more about what he’s done with the Boston Globe, check it out on his blog.

This is one of those rare occasions when I believe that the new shiny toy is going to be amazing. I’ve been reading Marcotte’s book (I swear I don’t really know the guy and we are definitely not friends) on responsive web design and think I might have to go with this approach, rather than trying to emulate the feel of an app.

Back to my project.

I’ve come up with several things that I think are important for my mobile site to have.

• The ability to bookmark or save stories to read later. Maybe you see a cool article and you want to check it out on your laptop instead of your smartphone. Or maybe you know you have a long bus ride home and you want to read this article to kill time.

• Local Storage: I’m going to store the ten newest stories, plus 5 (?) of the bookmarked/saved stories. That way, even if you lose connection, you’ll still have those stories.

• I’ll explain this further in a future post, but I think the ability to make text larger or smaller is important, particularly on a mobile device.

• I’m going to have a weather widget at the top. Why something so simple and maybe silly? Because when it comes to local news, 89 percent of people check the weather.

Last update: For the geolocation portion of my project, I’d like to focus it a bit more. I’m still going to have an option to see recent news in order of proximity to you. But for the rest of my geolocation fun, I’m going to focus on local restaurants and food. If I can find a nice way to display it, linking to community events by location would be great too.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

I'm still in the phase of figuring out the details of my project. My original pitch was to create a more interactive mobile version of a website for a hyperlocal news organization run out of UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. I have decided on Oakland North for the time being, as they have an active mobile population that wouldn't be too overwhelming for a first run (as opposed to Richmond Confidential, which has little mobile activity, and Mission Local, which has too much).

According to a recent PEW report, "28 percent of all American adults use mobile or social location-based services of some kind." This makes me happy.

My current plan is to explore geolocation as a way to filter information. I think the people who already go to a hyperlocal news site would be interested to see what's happening at a neighborhood level. And if you were out on the town, wouldn't you like to know if the restaurant you're waiting in line for was recently shut down for a health code violation?

The news organization really pushing geotagged news is the Las Vegas Sun. I'm trying to chat with them to see what is working for them.

My goals in the next few weeks will be to continue to research and interview people to storyboard what's been tried, what works and what does not. I'm also evaluating 3 mobile sites a week (doesn't have to be news) to examine mobile design aesthetics, test usability and see who is innovating content display on a mobile device.