Keeping our customers happy by making our products accessible
I received an e-mail late last week from a user who was experiencing problem accessing our Classic Edition of The Oklahoman.
He was a subscriber of the print edition of The Oklahoman, but also has a log in for the electronic Classic Edition – and sudddenly, he couldn’t log in.
I directed him to our customer service specialist, Chaaze, who promptly helped him retrieve his user name and password for that content.
A day later, he was a happy Classic Edition user:
Thanks so much for getting on my problem so quickly. We have it online now. Thanks also to Chaaze who was kind, efficient and considerate. I imagine at some point she wondered why my middle name was not “huh?”as I asked her to repeat so many times. Thanks again.
The point of this post is simple: (1) To brag about how nice we all are here and (2) to show that we have so many different ways that people can access our content.
No. 1 is important, but No. 2 can’t be overstated. You can get our news and information online, in print, on special digital delivery mechanisms, on the iPhone, on the BlackBerry, on your generic cell phone, on the Amazon Kindle, on Twitter and coming soon … through mental telepathy.
(OK … The last one was a bit of a stretch).
NewsOK launches more active navigation
If you use NewsOK.com often (and we hope that you do), you probably noticed a change to our navigation in the last week or so.
Now, as you mouse through the main navigation items — HOME, NEWS, SPORTS, BUSINES, LIFE … — you see the secondary navigation change as well.
We have dozens of pages underneath each of our main navigation items, so we thought it was important to showcase those more by having them appear as you mouse through the navigation
That means it’s now just one click to get to the OU page under the SPORTS navigation. And from there, it’s just one more click to get to the CELEBRITY WATCH page under the A&E navigation. And from there, it’s just one more click to get to the TECHNOLOGY page under the BUSINESS navigation.
We hope you find it more usable. Let us know what you think.
Oklahoma City Blazers blog keep fans throughly informed
I’m taking this time out from a busy day to showcase a solid blogger that might not be as noticeable to the wide NewsOK audience.
Bob “The Boneman” Przybylo covers the Oklahoma City Blazers hockey team for OPUBCO Communications Group. He’s at every game and every practice. He knows the players and coaches.
We’re not sure about this, but he might know more about the Blazers than the Blazers themselves.
I know all this simply because I read Bob’s blog. And I was compelled to post on my blog about it after I watched an entertaining and enlightening video interview with “The Boneman” and Blazers coach Doug Sauter (”the mustache”). Heck, Sauter even plugged the blog for “The Boneman” at the end of the video. Now that’s quality marketing.
The Blazers are in the playoffs now. All the coverage can be found on NewsOK’s Blazers page. And all the rest can be found on the Blazers Blog.
Mike and Carlos Boettcher partner with NewsOK.com for ‘On the Line’ embedded journalism
We lauched a new blog aimed at telling our soldiers’ stories from their eyes.
It’s called “On the Line,” and it features longtime war correspondent Mike Boettcher and his son Carlos Boettcher as they are embedded with U.S. service men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their story was featured on the front page of The Oklahoman on Sunday and on NewsOK.com. A video interview with Mike and reporter Bryan Dean can be found here:
But the real meat of the package will be found on the blog itself – which Mike and Carlos have begun to feed in recent weeks.
Mike and Carlos are working independently of corporate media. They aren’t reporting from safe zones and telling the stories that our government wants us to report. They are embedded with the young people serving our country, allowing them to tell their stories from their points of view.
And no – they don’t have to be doing this. Mike and Carlos are essentially risking their lives so they can share the lives of the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Why is NewsOK.com involved?After all, we are corporate media, right?
Simply put – the Boettchers needed a platform for their efforts. They wanted to be able to post blogs, videos and photos in an unfiltered way.
So we worked with Mike on a design and showed him how to blog. The rest is left to the journalists in the field – in this case, half a world away.
The Boettchers do not work for NewsOK.com – this is pure journalism at its base. Mike explains his mission and his motivation in his first blog post, titled “The Arrival.”
We invite NewsOK users to follow Mike and Carlos on their journey into war from the comforts of our offices, cubicles and living rooms.
We’re proud to be involved with this worthy effort.
It’s NCAA Tournament time (’plus vacation time’)
We are mere days away from the start of the NCAA Tournament.
You know … the day that your co-workers mysteriously disappear from the office, take looooooong lunches or are on “vacation.”
Side note: I will be out of the office on Thursday and Friday, but it’s a legitimate family trip to the sports ba – er …. I mean …. Arkansas. Really. I know people in Arkansas. It’ll be good to see them.
But you can see all the coverage on NewsOK.com’s NCAA Tournament coverage page. The coverage is brought to you by Nissan, which is why we have such cool content. We have every thing you will need:
- The national stories
- Printable brackets
- In-depth coverage of the local teams (OU men, OU women and OSU men)
- Contests
- Live scores
- Live chats during the OU and OSU games
- Blogs
- Video highlights
You can also find the latest local stories on you mobile device, the iPhone or the traditional mobile site. That’s what I’ll be using as I drive and visit in …. Arkansas.
Second Side note: If I see any basketball on the TV while in Arkansas, it will be a mere fortunate coincidence. No lie.
Berry Tramel’s blog is “must-read” sports journalism
I was catching up on my favorite blogs the other day.
Since I was on The Oklahoman’s sports desk in a former life, I still spend plenty of time catching up with our sports bloggers. Berry Tramel’s blog is my first stop.
Berry is smart – but we all knew that. I’ve long stated to anyone who would listen that I thought Berry was the best writer I’d ever had the pleasure of working with. I said that when I worked for him on the sports desk. He has enough knowledge and skill that most of us could be working for him, but that would mean he would have less time for what he does better than anyone else — report, analyze and write.
My point is simple: I recommend his blog for all sports fans. Of all the blogs Berry writes (and he does indeed blog just about every single day), his responses to e-mails he has received almost reach “must-read” status.
And I quote:
Here’s a legitimate question. Why are some of these people sports fans? I mean, it’s obvious they’re not happy …..
It’s quality entertainment, even if you don’t agree with him.
Here’s one more quote to emphasize my point:
Ladies and gentlemen, whenever you think OSU has the corner on inferiority complex, go back and read this guy, who has so many self-esteem issues, it would take an army of therapists to straighten him out.
Like I said … quality entertainment.
He responds to e-mails about once a week. Don’t miss the next one.
‘I’m George Lang, and this is Static’
These words are becoming well-known in the local music industry.
And no, George is not copying the long pause after “This … ” like Ryan Seacrest on American Idol. And no, he doesn’t banter with a cranky British judge.
But he is the perfect person to host our new local music show. It’s called “Static,” and it’s really cool stuff.
It’s hosted by George Lang, our assistant entertainment editor. It’s edited and put together by videographer Tanner Herriot. It profiles local bands and artists and shows clips of them performing in our studios.
Simply put, these videos are awesome. They’ve done five profiles so far — and now that the catalogue has built up, we’re going to start bragging about it more.
But you can check it out now.
Below is just a taste:
NCAA Bracket contests
Normally, we have one contest for our basketball enthusiasts.
Not this year. This year, we have three.
Why not, we figured. We always get a lot of our users to sign up for these games, so we might as well try three games. It doesn’t really take any more time to play three games and have opportunities to win three big prizes (all of our games have at last a large national prize).
- With our U Pick’Em game, you can win a $1,000,000 by picking all games correctly.
- With our Dell Sports Game of the Century contest, you can win a $100,000,000 grand prize. Yes, that’s the correct number of zeros.
- With our Athletix Nation Bracket Challenge, you can win a trip for four to Las Vegas during the NCAA tournament.
(Side note, if you win $100 million from a NewsOK contest, I get half …. it’s in the small print).
OK. That last part isn’t true, but it would be appreciated.
(Everything else in this post was absolute fact.)
I am playing every game. I’m just waiting for the tournament brackets to be chosen.
And as usual, when I get one upset picked correctly, I’ll tell everyone I know that I picked that upset and that I knew it all along. I won’t, however, mention the other 23 games in the first round that I did not know all along.
Big 12 tournament page ready on NewsOK
It’s official. The Big 12 Tournament page is live on NewsOK.
This is the only place you’ll need to go to see all the information on all 22 games that are played this weekend. NewsOK will absolutely have the most complete coverage of the Big 12 Tournament, with real-life reporters, videographers, photographers and columnists at absolutely every game.
That’s what you get when you put a tournament in our stomping ground.
NewsOK needed to keep up with basketball this week
I can watch a lot of basketball in one day. Give me two televisions and a remote control, and I’ll sit in front of the television and keep an eye on …. let’s say 20, maybe 25 games tops.
I can do it. I don’t have proof, but I’m pretty sure I can do it.
Years ago, when we were in our Web infancy on NewsOK (then it was TheOklahoman.com), I sat at State Fair Arena from Thursday through Saturday for more than 12 hours each day to cover the high school state tournaments as they happened.
That was in 2001.
But I don’t get a medal for working hard for three days eight years ago. It was nothing compared to what the sports staff will be doing this week.
They will be covering 48 games on Thursday. They will be posting stories as they finish. They will be blogging, analyzing and shooting video.
That’s 48 basketball games in complete detail.
Now let’s go back up and review how many games I think I can watch in a day …. 20-25 right? That’s on my best day with limited interruptions and a full night’s rest stored away.
Even if I had two TVs, a remote control and a whole day to burn, I can’t keep up with Thursday’s list of 48 games. It’s just impossible.
So there’s only one way to keep up with the action on Thursday — NewsOK.com.
NewsOK will have every game covered:
- The Big 12 Tournament, both men’s and women’s, is covered with our Big 12 page. It’s thorough – every team has its own page where you can browse the stories, stats and videos.
- The Class 2A through the Class 6A state basketball tournaments will be covered on our high school page. We’re spending the early part of this week getting that page organized to house all that coverage. But we already have the brackets and preview videos ready for our users. Again, we’ll have every game covered on both the boys and the girls brackets for each class.
Check out the coverage on both pages now. You can find updated brackets, plus all the latest news and notes.
