Innovation and technology at The Bakersfield Californian

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Innovation and technology at The Bakersfield
Californian

• Jan. 7, 2007

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Two very different approaches

• A very high-tech approach at the corporate level
• A very low-tech approach in the newsroom

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What makes us different

• Family owned, independent
• A determined owner
• Passionate about
• Community service
• Stewardship
• Long-term strategic
• positioning vs.
• short-term profits

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What makes us different

• A focused, highly evolved leadership group
• A shared vision
• Act like owners
• No silos, no intersibling squabbles allowed
• Innovation is prized
• Ten years of focus on the future
• A culture of innovation

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Long-term strategic plan

• Maximize the core extend the glide path
• Develop new products built around audiences and
  niches with readership and revenue potential
• Grow market share vertically, horizontally
• Grow revenue so we can support our core mission
  and reinvest in the future
• Maintain a strong editorial voice and our news
  values

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Find the technology to fit new products

• Buy it off the shelf if we can
• If we have to, build it
• Dont let technology get it in the way
• Its about reaching audiences with relevant
  content and utility, not technology

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Example The Northwest Voice

• Readers upload content to website
• Everything is posted automatically
• Editor exports content for print
• We needed an easy process for readers and editor
  alike
• Off-the-shelf solution was flawed, but it allowed
  us to launch

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A local answer to Craigslist

• In 2004 we anticipated the arrival of Craigslist
  in Bakersfield
• We wanted to beat them to market
• We wanted to offer something that would allow
  users to upload listings, content and would allow
  social networking

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A local answer to Craigslist

• We couldnt find an off-the-shelf solution, so we
  built our own social networking site with open
  source developers
• The day we launched, Craigslist turned on their
  Bakersfield list

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Bakotopia quickly evolves

• Bakotopia morphs into a youth and music site
• Free band uploads
• Social networking 2,500 profiles
• Users are taking the site where they want to take
  it

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Local Online Network
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Our home-grown solution

• Applying Bakomatic, with its social networking
  and publishing tools, to our other sites.
• We envision an online community publishing
  platform for multiple brands to
• Let community members publish their own content
• Allow individual sites to have different features
  and levels of control
• Keep everything in one database, though sites may
  look quite different
• Make it fast and easy to create lots of
  mini-sites
• Collect data on consumers and activity that paves
  the way for advertising models of the future

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How this affects our main site

• Bakersfield.com, our main site, is on a polyglot
  of platforms
• Content management system is provided by
  McClatchy Interactive
• Were still not fully utilizing all the tools,
  but weve made progress
• Weve bolted on Bakomatic to give our users
  social networking tools

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Harnessing the power of databasing

• The next steps Tagging and geocoding
• Our bloggers are tagging their content
• Reporters will tag stories with keywords
• This will allow us to
• Create dynamic sections on the fly
• Improve search so Google and Yahoo can find our
  stuff
• Free the content to go where the user wants it to
  go

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Harnessing the power of databasing

• We plan to be geocode everything stories, data,
  listings
• Will allow us to create maps on the fly
• Will allow us to sort geographically and create
  microsites

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Technology in the newsroom

• A very different approach
• Not sophisticated, but the level of staff
  engagement is near-universal
• More than 70 percent of staff created multimedia
  of some sort in 2006
• Every reporter produces video
• Six regular podcasts a week
• All staff columnists record audio columns

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How weve succeeded (continued)

• Everyone is a part of the web effort
• Nearly every member of the copy desk everyone on
  sports desk involved in posting
• About 18 Californian blogs
• More than a half-dozen reporters have their own
  blogs

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Our experience

• If you want a broader swath of people using and
  adopting, its got to be simple
• If wed introduced video with HD cameras and
  weeks of training, wed be crawling instead of
  running.

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Video by reporters

• A different kind of reporting
• Reporters tend to tell stories, rather than get
  hung up on the technology and the editing

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Key principle Simplicity

• Video clip

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Key principle Simplicity

• Sony Cybershots and Casio cameras
• Free software
• Windows MovieMaker (free)
• Apples iMovie (free)
• Audacity (audio program) free _at_ download.com
• Flash video encoder is free and works better than
  the 1,000 program we bought

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Starting small is okay

• Three years ago, we got our toe in the water with
  SMS alerts, sending out Super Bowl scores.
• In 2006, we sent out 54,627 messages to 2,104
  subscribers.
• Breaking news alerts
• Prep sports scores (using citizen journalists)
• Fog delays
• Concert alerts
• Daily news headlines

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Our experience

• The staff has to understand the level of urgency
  and commitment
• The technology must be accessible
  it cant get in the way
• Training is vital
• Training can be affordable
• Training needs to be fun
• Encourage your staffers to push the limits

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Positive reinforcement
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Positive reinforcement
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Positive reinforcement
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Encourage innovation at every level

• A major trial was moved out of Bakersfield on a
  change of venue. We staffed it every day.
• We wanted to do a daily midday audio update. Web
  editor remembered our phones create digital
  (.wav) files when recording voicemail.
• Sometimes the technology you have at your desk is
  all the technology you need.

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Dont be afraid to fail

• Now is the time to be making mistakes
• Mistakes we made six months ago we arent making
  today
• Staff is growing more sophisticated together

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