The birth of the NewsOK Storywall
Web editor Nick Tankersley had an idea a few weeks back. He thought it would be nifty if we told a story in a completely non-linear way — allowing users to click on a number of different elements and get a different experience each time.
They might get a photo if they click on one block of content.
They might get a video if they click on another block of content.
They might get a bit of text if they choose yet another block.
And moments after that idea, the ‘NewsOK Storywall‘ was born.
Nick began working on the database that would feed our first storywall, learning more about the Django framework to feed the application. Multimedia reporters John Estus and Ken Raymond began developing content that would go into the wall, and photographer John Clanton began getting a variety of photos to feed the page.
After some hard work and unforseen obstacles, we launched the first ‘NewsOK Storywall’ this weekend as the Oklahoma State Fair came to a close.
Check it out. Let me know what you think.
Personally, I kind of like it. I think it would be interesting to add wall for OU and OSU football games, perhaps the OU-Texas game or the Bedlam battle later this year.
But I’d like to see if our users think it’s as nifty as I think it is. Just comment below, send me an e-mail or post a message on Twitter. I’ll listen any way I can.
It’s like I’m right there in the wrestling ring
I spent a day at the Golden Goose Flea Market in Midwest City a few weeks back when the Mid South Wrestling Alliance held one of its events.
Welll … I think I spent the day there.
Frankly, I can’t remember if I was actually there or not. I can visualize being there. I feel like I had some conversations with some fans and participants. I heard the sounds, tasted the popcorn and sat in a metal folding chair.
I think.
That’s what reporter Ken Raymond photographer John Clanton can do with a project. They will put you in the middle of the action, and you won’t remember if you experienced that for yourself or if you read about it and watched a slideshow.
They pulled it off for their package on the Mid South Wrestling Alliance last week. Ken Raymond wrote the story. John Clanton took the photos and put together a slideshow. Throw in some great design and headline writing, and you have …. Ringmasters – a tale of professional wrestling in Oklahoma.
Check out the picture he paints of one of the top Mid South stars, Kevin Morgan, a.k.a. “The Awesome One”:
I don’t know the champ, but I met Morgan at practice yesterday. He’s a big guy — 6 foot 5 and 255 pounds — with wiry brown hair, a long, straight nose and a lantern jaw. In the ring, wearing his silver and black wrestling tights, knee braces and shiny black boots, he looks like a superhero, albeit one who takes a few nights off each week for a good steak sandwich and a pitcher of Bud. Like most of the wrestlers here, he’s strong and intimidating but looks better as a shirt than a skin.
I didn’t say it, Mr. Morgan. It was Ken Raymond. R-A-Y-M-O-N-D.
Be nice to him, though. He can really craft a story.
The final word on the mustache
There not really anything I can add to this post, except this:
Our sports department is creative.
Burning through money: A multimedia experiment
Local Editor Michael Baker and a few members of his reporting team – John Estus and Bryan Dean – pulled off a nice multimedia package last week.
They enlisted the help of web editor Nick Tankersley, art director Todd Pendleton and graphic artist Brian Mays to effectively tell the story about the battle between the Oklahoma City firefighters and city officials.
We have three articles, a video interview and four informational graphics to help tell help describe the details of this story — which range from arguments about excessive overtime pay, contract negotiations and incident rates.
It was an experiment for us. Can we tell an hard news, ongoing coverage piece in a way different than we normally do.
We think it worked this time. And we’ll do something to take it a step further next time.
Horoscope arrives to NewsOK Life and A&E pages
You read your horoscope.
You don’t have to lie. We already know you read your horoscope. When you see it in the paper, you read it. When you see it in a magazine, you read it. When you see it online, you read it.
I read it. How can I not? Fortune cookies can only tell me so much. That’s why today, I will not be buying that ocean-front property in Arizona that I’ve thinking about.
CANCER (June 21 to July 22): Do not make any important decisions about finances today. Similarly, do not make any important purchases. You might be deceived; or you might not have all the facts. Use caution!
Thanks to NewsOK, I might have avoided a potential property-buying misstep.
Horoscopes are now available on NewsOK. You can get to them every day by clicking on the HOROSCOPES link in the sub-navigation under LIFE or A&E. It can be just one more click in your NewsOK browsing every morning as you get all the information you need for that day.
As a matter of fact, it should be one more click. It needs to be one more click.
We made it easy to see your horoscope on NewsOK. Now you can’t say that you made mistakes because you didn’t read your horoscope that day.
I’ll by the ocean-front property in Arizona tomorrow. Thanks, NewsOK horoscope!
Searching on NewsOK just got a lot better
Search for something on NewsOK.
No … really. We really want you to search for something on NewsOK.
OK. I’ll try it. I searched “Landry Jones.” You know – he’s the quarterback at OU now that Sam Bradford is injured early in the season.
Anyway, take a look at what I saw when I searched “Landry Jones.”
I ended up spending a couple minutes watching a highlights video of Landry Jones as a high school star in Artesia, N.M. We posted that video on Feb. 3, 2008 when he signed to play at OU. I would have watched the entire video, but the music was hurting my ears.
Try your own search on NewsOK. You’ll find that we …. (prepare for the understatement of the year) …. have improved the search process on NewsOK.
A core group of developers and programmers in our Audience Development department spent a lot of time this summer working with other search experts to finally get the types of results our audience has always wanted on NewsOK. Simply put, when you execute a search on NewsOK, you will now get comprehensive and relevant results — every time. And quite frankly, we couldn’t always say that.
We can now.
After executing a search, you can refine the search by type of content, dates, author, topics and more. If you’re looking for a video on NewsOK from 2008, it’s not hard to find (even if it’s an obscure highlights video from New Mexico).
We’re still working out some of the kinks. The launch of our new search is actually a soft launch this week. But we’re pretty proud of the results so far. That’s why I’m singing about it from The Digital Desk.
Let me know what you think about it? Just go to NewsOK and search.
Showcasing an nDepth inspiration
Check out the nDepth piece we showcased on the home page of NewsOK today. Reported by Jenni Carlson, it’s a story about Dick Hoyt, who is internationally known for the races (marathons, triathlons, etc) he runs pushing, pulling and carrying his wheelchair-bound son.
Jenni interviewed Dick Hoyt (you can listen to the interview) and talked to other Oklahomans who have been inspired by his story. We tell this story with our nDepth piece, which contains videos, text, slideshows and a lot of photos.
We wanted to showcase this story today because while the story appeared in The Oklahoman on Sunday, we know that the attention on NewsOK on Sunday centered on another local story (see Sam Bradford). So today, you get inspired with our nDepth.
And while you’re reading about Dick and his son, be sure to click through to our other nDepth pieces. We have 15 of them finished, and we plan to have many more.
‘Oklahoma Idol’ series amuses, entertains, informs
I clicked on the video above from the NewsOK home page this morning.
Classic stuff. Quality entertainment.
Now I see what sports editor Mike Sherman has been talking about. This stuff is a bit different. You can’t help but be part amused, part shocked, part horrified — but completely entertained and informed.
Yes … in this one three-minute clip, we see Gerald McCoy profess his love for Sam Bradford (see ’shocked’) and Adrian Taylor sing country music (see ‘horrified’).
You can see the entire series this season on the College Football Preview page on NewsOK. It’s a page based on the theme of “Oklahoma Idol” and it has all the preview stories and videos for the college football season. We’ll be adding more amusing, shocking and horrifying videos from the players and our Idol hosts throughout the season.
Maybe we’ll eventually get to hear Mike Sherman sing. I’ve heard it before … all previously used adjectives can properly describe that experience.
Interest increases in Anadarko church killing coverage on NewsOK
Monday was a big day for NewsOK.com in terms of page views.
The program for the funeral of Carol Daniels is pictured in Oklahoma City on Aug. 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)
We had a story that simply went off the charts on our Top Ten Most-Viewed Articles page. The story was written by reporter Nolan Clay, and it first appeared in The Oklahoman on Sunday. It contained details about the death of Oklahoma City pastor in the Anadarko church. the details are chilling, indeed – which is precisely why the traffic was so high on the story.
The Drudge Report picked up the story and linked to it from its Web site, bringing hundreds of thousands of intrigued internet browsers to NewsOK.com. The Drudge Report links to us fairly often (once a month or so) – and that’s a compliment, I’m sure. It means we often have stories that have a wide interest. And it means we often have reporters that will not stop until they can give readers the information they want.
We built an Ongoing Coverage page to The Anadarko Church Killing so we can properly allow interested visitors to browser the history of the story. We are also allowing comments to be shared on this story – a step we’ve taken in the past for stories in which we feel the public demand for conversation outweighs our stated intentions on our commenting policy.
Perhaps most importantly, you can share your condolences with friends and family of Carol Daniels in her online guestbook on NewsOK.
Take time to see all the articles, graphics, videos and comments about this ongoing story. Nobody has been arrested yet, but I can guarantee that we will cover this story thoroughly until we know the resolution
Make your football picks on NewsOK
It’s time to make your picks.
We do this every year … picks contest for high school football, college football and NFL football.
And every year, we think that we’ve pretty much captured the U Pick’Em audience for our contests.
But, every year, we find that the audience is waiting for this contest …. and they’ve brought their friends.
We launched this season’s set of contests last week without much fanfare We sent some e-mails to past participants, and we posted a link on our new sports pages for OU and OSU. But we didn’t spend a lot of time promoting or driving people to the contest. In hindsight, perhaps we should have. We have thousands of participants on all the contests, and pick are being made for Week 1 every hour.
It’s not too late for you. Sign up and play. Invite your friends and form a group.
There’s no rule saying you can’t have fun on NewsOK.com.
