Spreading the word about QR codes and The Oklahoman’s digital products
A newspaper reader called me the other day. He was a pleasant fellow who wanted to know if I could help him figure out how to use the QR codes that we print in The Oklahoman.
He was wanting to connect to our multimedia videos and photos that we often refer to from these QR codes. He was willing to learn something new. Strike that … he was wanting to learn something new and enhance his daily newspaper reading experience.
What a nice conversation that was.
It took just a couple of minutes to show him that the best way to scan these QR codes was to download The Oklahoman’s iPhone app. That was easy. It took just about two minutes for him to download the app.
While we waited for him to retrieve the app from the store, we chatted about how this application would allow him to download an edition of the newspaper every day for free. As a subscriber, he gets that service free of charge. That was news to him. And I stressed that he doesn’t have to read the newspaper on his iPhone; we want him to read the newspaper if he prefers. But he does have that platform available to him if/when he needs it or wants it.
But more importantly, that app can make his printed newspaper even better.
Once he had the application, I showed him the SCAN button in the main navigation of the app. That’s available to any iPhone user — subscriber or not. He pushed that button, then we both pointed the camera at a scan code on the front page of that day’s newspaper.That’s when he said it:
“Well, there it is! How ’bout that!”
He was watching a NewsOK video within a handful of minutes of dialing me up. His newspaper content jumped from the printed page onto his digital device and started talking to him.
And he became a more connected, more informed reader of our newspaper. That made him a happy customer.
And it made my day.
Another story about amazing uses for today’s technology
I’ve written quite a bit about the iPad I use on a daily basis. I bought it last year — I think it was in May.
It’s the absolute truth that this device has changed my day-to-day life as much as any device or tool I’ve purchased in years (the fancy washer and dryer from about five years ago is a close second). I mean, the washer and dryer didn’t effectively replace my heavy laptop or my large portfolio notebook I always carried around.
So we know I like my iPad. That much is clear.
Azon Meyers presses on the screen to show he understand the letter “D” is for dolphin. Special education teachers at the Children’s Center in Bethany are using iPads in therapy sessions with children. PHOTO BY JIM BECKEL, THE OKLAHOMAN
But then I read Sonya Colberg’s story on Sunday about how iPads are being used to help improve the communication skills of children with disabilities at The Children’s Center in Bethany.
It was a great story that helps us see how people in all aspects of our community are using technological tools to make their lives and other lives around them better.
Scribbling helps children learn to communicate, she explained. But that early step is often lost to children like Abbagale who can’t hold a crayon or tap a keyboard.
Yet with her wrists in slings, Abbagale can draw or “turn” the pages of an alphabet book by lightly sliding a fingertip across the iPad screen.
Her teacher asked if she wanted to draw. The child turned those big eyes upward, meaning yes.
I shared those three paragraphs because it made me stop and shake my head. … And I thought my iPad changed my life.
The Buckles family takes on the digital transition
Local Editor Rick Green doesn’t just organize the news coverage every day while constantly juggling conversations and opinions of news reporters and managing editors.
Local Editor Rick Green (and resident Buckles reader)
No, even though he has one of the toughest jobs in the OPUBCO building, Rick apparently still finds time to read the paper cover to cover — literally — every day. I know this because the comics are on the back page of our Life section or Classifieds section each day, and Rick is a a reader of those comics.
How do I know he reads the comics? I know this, because he shared a series that was in Buckles last week. It was all about the newspaper transition to digital. Some of the conversations in the panels are similar to conversations I’ve had with friends and family members in recent years as OPUBCO has begun to offer enhanced digital subscriptions while continuing to offer an outstanding printed product. Buckles creator David Gilbert did a fine job capturing the challenges of the digital transition.
It’s always interesting to listen to the passion that people have about the way they like to read our news. The six-day series was fun to follow. Check out the Buckles for those six days below (click on the images to go to LOOKatOKC’s Comics Kingdom page, where you can see these images larger).
By the way, it shouldn’t go without noting that Rick showed me these comics by handing me a stack of newspapers.
Oh, and to be perfectly clear … there’s no shame in reading the comics. I read some every day in The Oklahoman, as well. I just happen to read them on The Oklahoman’s iPad edition instead of the printed newspaper.
‘Finding a Forever Family’ — a special NewsOK nDepth story
In the midst of all the earthquake madness this weekend, you might have missed a special nDepth presentation we put together and launched on Saturday night on NewsOK.com.
So take the time to read “Finding a Forever Family” when you have a few spare minutes. It’s a story told by OPUBCO’s own Michelle Kelley as told to our Night News Director Yvette Walker. Michelle tells the her story of working with the system to adopt a child.
This isn’t the story of Michelle Kelley. It’s the story of a little boy and a little girl nicknamed Biggin’ and Darlin’. And it’s also the story of why some children have to wait so long to find families to take them in and love them forever — “forever families.”
We also created a special PDF presentation that is enhanced be flipped through on a user’s iPad. It’s best viewed in iBooks on the iPad, but it’s a good PDF to read in any way you want to.
I highly recommend reading it an whatever way you want. And for a nice preview, here’s a video to get you started.
The Oklahoman iPad/iPhone app in Newsstand for iOS 5
The Oklahoman’s custom iPad application took another step with the release of Apple’s iOS 5 a couple weeks ago.
Our app became one of the first news applications in Apple’s Newsstand.
Your next question might be … “What is Newsstand?”
Well, if you have already upgraded your iPad or iPhone to iOS 5, you probably already know about Newsstand. If you haven’t, read this:
iOS 5 organizes your magazine and newspaper app subscriptions in Newsstand: a folder that lets you access your favorite publications quickly and easily. There’s also a new place on the App Store just for newspaper and magazine subscriptions.
Not every news media company that has a application on the iPad made their app available for Newsstand. But we did. Now, if you’re using our custom app on a daily basis and you’ve upgraded to iOS 5, then you get our daily editions through the Newsstand folder.
One of the big reasons we went this route was the automated download feature. Newsstand will download the daily edition of The Oklahoman as soon as it’s available. Now, our readers don’t have to wake up, open the app, download the latest edition and wait for it to be available. When they wake up, the edition will already be there (as long as they have a good wifi connection in the air while they sleep).
This is pretty cool feature that I’ve found useful since I upgraded. Sure, iOS 5 has lots of neat enhanced swiping features, a cool reminders app and the ability to airplay your device on big screens, but I really like the automated download of my daily newspaper through Newsstand.
That’s my favorite feature.
NewsOK week in review: Mobile gameday coverage, Mr. Know It and early morning mowing
Follow the OU and OSU games on your mobile device
This is the one thing I’m most excited about this week. We’re making one huge improvement to our live college football game day coverage this year. We’re launching special game coverage pages for OU and OSU so users can easily see all our live content from their mobile device. Go ahead … log on with your iPhone while you’re sitting on the couch …. or while you’re sitting at the tailgate or inside the stadium …. or while you’re shopping with your girlfriend. This page will serve every need. We’ll have our live chat, a live photo gallery, a live boxscore, updated blog posts, update articles, a complete scoreboard and more — and it will be formatted specifically for your mobile device. It will truly be everything you need on your mobile device.
Full Access — Print + Digital
I could write a book about the great offerings we have for Full Access to all our products on multiple devices. But nothing says it better than this video commercial, so I’ll just stop typing ….
Ed Godfrey — the music man
Trace Adkins (not Ed Godfrey)
Outdoors editor Ed Godfrey had an excellent blog post late last week. After listening to Trace Adkins’ new song, “Just Fishin’,” Ed decided to rank the top 10 fishing songs of all time. Ed didn’t think Adkins’ latest would reach the top 10 of all time fishing songs. I disagree.
2011 Football preview — Digital Part 1
You still have time to read all the content in The Oklahoman’s 2011 Football Preview. NewsOK built a special page for the “Dynamic Duos’ coverage, including pages for OU, OSU, High School and Big 12/Nation. There really no better way to get fully prepared for the football season.
2011 football preview — Digital Part 2
The site mentioned above is great for NewsOK users, but what about our iPad users? Well, we also created special PDF editions for OU, OSU and high school football previews. The editions are built specifically to look great on your iPad. It’s high design and in-depth preview coverage built for you to store on iBooks on your device. You don’t have to have an iPad to download these special editions. Go ahead, read it on your laptop or even your iPhone. But if you have an iPad, you really have to give this a try. 1) OU edition. 2) OSU edition. 3) High school edition.
Stop-motion football fun
Speaking of getting ready for the football season, a couple of our video animation experts and one of our artists were busy making outstanding intro animations for our videos. Check out the “Making of NewsOK 2011 Stop Motion Intros” video, starring Kyle Roberts, Billy Davis, Steve Boaldin and Berry Tramel. (Berry did no work on this project, but we think it’s important that he appear in all videos this Fall). This video is really cool, because it shows the amazing talent we have working in our building every day. I’m impressed.
Steve Lackmeyer and the MidTown controversy
Steve Lackmeyer was in MidTown a week ago for an inaugural outdoor food market celebration. He previewed the event with a story. He was at the event as a reporter. He was there when the event was shut down by a number of local agencies. He blogged about it. He Tweeted about it. He wrote a couple of follow-up stories about it. He was so on top of this story that you might wonder if Steve orchestrated the entire thing just so he can report on it. Well, Steve’s a well-respected voice in our community, but he’s not that powerful. He is, however, a quality reporter that stays after stories once he starts to report on them. For that, all of our readers appreciate him.
I dare you not to read this story
We had a well-read story for our Oklahoma readers on Tuesday. It became a well-read story on an international level on Thursday when the Drudge Report linked to the story. The headline says it all: “4:30 a.m. mowing leads to Oklahoma City man’s arrest.” There’s really nothing more I can say to make you click on that story.
Alan Herzberger — star photographer
When we saw the first evidence of smoke to the southeast of our building on Tuesday afternoon, the breaking news reporters sprang into action. As our photographers and reporters raced to the scene and our editors raced to put the information we already had on the top of NewsOK, I took my iPhone a walked to our parking garage to snap a photo of the smoke from a distance. As I walked back to the building entry, I emailed the photo to pics@newsok.com. Before I reached the elevator, I saw the alert that my photo was live on our August User-Submitted Photos gallery. On the elevator, I emailed that to Robb Hibbard, our Digital News Editor. And when I returned to my desk, the photo I took moments earlier was at the top of NewsOK.com — 620 pixels wide. I was very proud.
Mr. Know It debuts
Look closely at that photo on the right. Is that Mr. Know It? Or is it a cardboard Mr. Know It? The debate in our newsroom rages on, but the important thing is that Mr. Know It is available to visit all areas of central Oklahoma. We just can’t know for sure if it’s a real-life Mr. Know It or a cardboard Mr. Know It. It doesn’t really matter, as Communities Editor Don Gammill (the real-life one) says: “He’s generally available to travel, and he’s easy to work with. You’ll never hear him complain, and he’s always smiling.”
A new web editor will join us
I hired a new web editor that serve a multitude of purposes for NewsOK. Her name is Lindsay Houts, and if you are in the social media circles in Oklahoma City, you are already know her. She’ll start soon, and you will see her involved quite heavily with our sports coverage in the digital space. I hope you connect with Lindsay and welcome her to our team.
Most-viewed article
Remember that story about the man who was arrested after he was mowing his lawn at 4:30 a.m.? It was our most-viewed article of the week. We even followed up the story to get more information for our readers. After all, the first story was so popular, we felt there was a little more to tell, so check out Friday’s story, as well.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney was the author of our most-viewed blog post last week. Well, this makes two straight weeks for Travis. His post, “Here we go: A&M gone, now what for OU?,” was the most-viewed post in the NewsOK blogging network. He was breaking down all the options for OU in the conference realignment mess facing the Big 12 Conference.
Most-viewed photo gallery
The wildfires in Oklahoma were our top news item this week. The stories, videos and photos dominated the NewsOK home page, and rightfully so. The gallery was highly trafficked. These photos were from the journalistic professionals that consistently serve up the best images about and around Oklahoma. (In other words, they aren’t the phone snapshots I take from the parking garage).
Most-viewed video
This week’s Press Row video with Jenni Carlson and Berry Tramel also covered conference realignment and the Big 12 Conference. It led all videos this week:
Sports, nDepths and Halliburton executives dominate last full week of August on NewsOK
A blank blog post for about 15 hours
Thank goodness for moms. At a family gathering last weekend, the No. 1 reader of this blog reported that last week’s blog post was blank — as in empty …. nothing to read at all except for a catchy headline. I called up the blog post on the computer and saw that her report was accurate. I’m not sure how that happened. I do know that I made some changes (fixing typos) Friday night on my iPad. I must have pushed the wrong button. Luckily, WordPress has a nice version history of all posts, and I was able to retrieve what was there on Friday night. Whew!
NewsOK.com is hiring
I’m hiring a web editor position. We recently lost a good hand. It’s a shame. But we understand that not everyone spends their entire career here. There are plenty of opportunities for career growth for good people, even when times are tough in the news publishing business. But with every loss comes great opportunity, so we’re looking for a web editor that can do a wide variety of things to help us grow: “NewsOK.com is looking for a web editor to work closely with our online sports initiatives and our sports department. We need a journalist skilled in social media, blogging, content curation, industry technology and trends and solid news judgment to connect with our audience and continue our aggressive digital media efforts. Contact aherzberger@opubco.com.”
OHP sex scandal page
We launched a new Ongoing Coverage page last week amid the series of stories covering the case of Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper Patrick Venable. Venable is charged with second-degree rape after being accused of taking a woman into custody in the early morning hours of June 20 and then driving her to her house in Guthrie to have sex. Venable’s next court appearance is set for Sept. 22. On our ongoing coverage page, you can see all the previous stories on this case and read the court and read the affidavit that led to the charges.
Fighting Back – a new nDepth
We launched a new nDepth special presentation this week that is intended to be the first in a series of nDepth specials titled “Fighting Back.” The first one was a story about Reggie Whitten, who has started several non-profit organizations during the past few years after the death of his son Brandon. In this nDepth piece, Jenni Carlson shares Whitten’s story about Brandon’s addiction and eventual death – and how he turned that tragedy into a life spent trying to help others in the world. It’s a powerful story.
Berry’s take on Perkins
Berry Tramel had a Berry-like take on the recent Kendrick Perkins controversy that we reported on last week (and I blogged about in my previous post). From Berry: “What a crock. Hey, Gran Torino, let me tell you what Clint Eastwood would not do in this kind of situation. He wouldn’t hide behind some shill. If he felt he was wronged, he would say so. Or at least, keep quiet and not let anyone else do his talking for him.” We’ve really had all sides of this story covered. Now we’re just waiting on the truth to come out.
Happy iPad customer No. 1
I received an email this week from a longtime newspaper subscriber who now gets the edition every day on his iPad. This customer is a perfect example of a traditional newspaper reader who has transitioned to a digital device as his lifestyle has changed. He was patient and pleasant, but he couldn’t get an edition to download on Tuesday morning. After a quick email exchange (I handed him off to our customer service specialist for digital products), the problem was fixed. We don’t have many problems with customers trying to get an edition or get connected, when we do, we’re happy to help as quickly as we can.
Happy iPad customer No. 2
I spoke with my brother-in-law last weekend. He lives in Springdale, Ark., and reported that he is a new subscriber to The Oklahoman on his iPad device. This customer is a perfect example of a non-traditional newspaper reader who has connected with us because of his new device. He didn’t read the newspaper daily when he lived in town, but he’s always been a digital news consumer. The Oklahoman’s iPad app is a great way to stay informed, especially as it relates to Oklahoma. He’s interested in staying informed about his former state. So because of technology and our development, he’s a new customer. That makes us happy.
Community blogs
We recently launched a community blogs page that has links to a lot of Oklahoma bloggers (45 of them, to be exact). Some of the bloggers are hosted within the NewsOK blogging community, but others are doing their own thing. We link to them as well. I’ve always known the blogging community is Oklahoma is strong, but having dozens of them in one place really helps get around the community quickly. If you’re a blogger, but don”t see yours on here, let me know. I expect that we will add many more in the next week or so.
Travis Haney is on campus
Our new OU football reporter Travis Haney started this week. And judging by his first two blog posts about his tour of the OU campus and his memories of the great Pat Summit, we’re in for a treat on his daily reports and musings about the OU football program. Check them out. Send him a note. And look for much more from Travis.
All-Access from ESPN
Speaking of the OU blog, Mike Baldwin is also covering the Sooners every day. This week, he had the rough assignment of watching television — something many OU fans surely watched as well. His breakdown — ESPN’s ‘All-Access, training Days With the Oklahoma Sooners’ is must-see TV — was helpful to me, especially since I’ve yet to see the program. Mike offered a series of notes about the show, and then said this: “The only negative for a reporter like myself is the media used to get this type of access years ago before college football coaches shut down watching practices. I miss those days. Not only did you get to see which backup players were close to being ready to contribute you saw more of the players’ personalties.”
Gina Mizell starts her gig with us
Staying with the sports theme this week (we are almost ready for football season, you know), check out the blog posts from the new OSU football reporter Gina Mizell. She opened up with an interesting comparison between the OSU football program and the Arizona State football program. She also talked about how she saw her first OSU practice. But her big introduction to us is this video with Berry Tramel from the OPUBCO Studios …
Most-viewed article
A Halliburton executive sipped from a cup of fracking fluid at an industry conference. We had an AP story on it, and Fark.com linked to it, driving the Halliburton executive takes a swig of fracking fluid article to the top of the list for articles this week on NewsOK.
Most-viewed blog post
Travis Haney’s aforementioned blog post about his experience with legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit was our most-viewed blog post this week.
Most-viewed photo gallery
For the second consecutive week, the gallery of the former OU quarterback Jimmy Harris has been the most-viewed photo gallery in our photo section. Jimmy keeps on winning.
Most-viewed video
An OU practice report from Tuesday was our most-viewed video this week:
This week on NewsOK: New apps, updated apps and everything from Bennie Owen to Kendrick Perkins
Serving another iPad experience
We launched our custom iPad application for The Oklahoman last October. I wrote about it plenty, and we received quite a bit of national notoriety for this application. Since the launch in Oct. 2010, we opened the subscriptions up for all subscribers to The Oklahoman, as well as offering a la carte subscriptions for $9.99 per month. But we also launched a different iPad app with a completely different experience in the past month or so. This one gives readers a page-by-page experience on their iPad. In other words, it acts as an interactive PDF of the newspaper edition. Since we launched it, we’ve received a lot of positive feedback. The one review we have in the App store says this: “This is exactly what reading the paper electronically SHOULD be like.” That user is a true believer, but others prefer the customized tablet experience we had already built. Us? We honestly don’t care which application you use. We are simply trying to provide the best digital experiences possible for our users who continue to move their reading habits to new devices. The Oklahoma Print Replica app is just another option for you. And it’s free to all subscribers of The Oklahoman.
A weekend of rowing
Last weekend was a big weekend for the Oklahoma River with the USRowing Master’s National Championships in town. We had the event covered with a series of stories, photo galleries and videos. Dave Morris did a stellar job with a video recap of the event on Sunday. And the blog post from photographer John Clanton was top notch. Of course, the photos galleries were probably the most popular element of the weekend (NewsOK readers absolutely love photos).
Growing Oklahoma Watch coverage
We launched a third Oklahoma Watch page recently. Oklahoma Watch, you might remember, is a “non-profit, investigative and in-depth reporting team that collaborates with other news organizations and higher education to produce journalism that makes a difference in the lives of Oklahomans.” We launched a page on NewsOK late in 2010 as we began our combined Women in Prison series with Oklahoma Watch. And recently, we started Oklahoma Watch pages on Tax Credits and on Immigration. It’s all found on our Oklahoma Watch page. But more than anything, it’s proof of what we think our role is here … the continued focus on serious issues is something that we at The Oklahoman and NewsOK are committed to.
The Kendrick Perkins saga
The Kendrick Perkins saga has been pretty interesting this week. It began on Saturday, when news from Beaumont, Texas, came out with information about Kendrick Perkins being arrested early that morning. It was a misdemeanor, but it didn’t look good. Jenni Carlson wrote a column about it, pointing out exactly how it didn’t look so good. “But to be an NBA player in your hometown doing a youth camp and raising money for life-skills and drug-awareness training for kids, to be arrested less than 24 hours after going to the hospital and being told to cool it, to blow off a charity game and a camp banquet to then go out to a club and get arrested, that is plain dumb.” Darnell Mayberry followed up with reports from the Perkins camp saying that he’s innocent and he wants to clear his name: “‘He was not drinking alcohol, nor was he intoxicated,’ said White, CEO and founder of EAG Sports Management. ‘Not one drop of alcohol Friday night. We’re not sure why they said Kendrick was intoxicated.‘ ” It’s interesting, and NewsOK will have it all covered. What else are we going to do … cover NBA games during a lockout?
This just in — I have a favorite app
I’ve had my iPad for about six months now. I love it. This week, I finally decided on my absolute favorite app. It’s one I downloaded months ago but never really used on a regular basis. This week, I opened the MLS MatchDay 2011 app and realized how much information it gave to soccer fans of the top U.S. league. Granted, I don’t follow the league that closely, but I casually follow what’s happening in Major League Soccer. And if central Oklahoma would have joined the league with a team in 2004 (check the NewsOK archives for history on that), I would have been following the league very closely. As it is, I just felt I should share that for its functionality and content, the MLS Match Day app is my favorite.
NewsOK TV video worth seeing each day
NewsOK TV is a show that Dave Morris and Angi Bruss have been doing for the past month or so. It’s always a great recap on what people are talking about every day.
Download our videos on NewsOK.tv app
Speaking of NewsOK TV, I highly recommend finding and downloading our NewsOK TV app for your iPhone. We updated the app with new functionality on Aug. 10, and it’s definitely worth a look. Check out the iTunes app store for the latest upgrade. It’s all you need to see every video that we produce at NewsOK.
A trip through The Oklahoman archives
Bennie Owen
I received this question from a NewsOK user this week: “I’m looking for an article … that was printed in 1969. Do you know if the online paid subscription archive would go back that far. Thank you for your time.” My answer: “I would recommend using our archives for The Oklahoman. We should have everything you are looking for dating back to 1901. The link is available on the NewsOK home page sub-navigation.” The Oklahoman’s archives are a real treasure that are sometimes overlooked. Just for fun, I did a quick search for Bennie Owen (I wanted to be sure I could find some I ended up with a long list of stories. After all, Bennie Owen is a legendary football coach at OU and the namesake of the field at Oklahoma Memorial Stadium. Here is just one item I found – a notes column from Charles J. Brill that included a passionate plea to make Owen the athletic director at the school. I love reading old columns from our archives. You’d enjoy it, too.
‘Know it’ all about the state quarterbacks
We launched two new know it pages this week in preparation for the football season. You can now read everything you need to know about OU quarterback Landry Jones and OSU quarterback Brandon Weeden. We can only hope there’s no know it curse, though. Two years ago, we launched pages for Sam Bradford and Zach Robinson. Bradford was injured in the first game. Robinson’s numbers fell short of legendary ‘know it’ status. We wish better ‘know it’ luck to Jones and Weeden.
Most-viewed video
Get ready for a steady diet of Berry Tramel and college football. We start with the most-viewed video this week:
Most-viewed article
The most-viewed article this week was Berry Tramel’s column about the Sooners and their future conference affiliation: OU wants no part of the SEC.
Most-viewed blog
Berry led the blog charge this week. This was also about college football: Big 12 football: Houston is no solution.
Most-viewed photo gallery
The gallery is more than a week old, but it still was popular this week. It was the photo gallery we created to go with our obituary of legendary OU quarterback Jimmy Harris. It should be noted, of course, that the primary column that the gallery was linked to was Berry Tramel’s column: The quarterback who never lost.
A week in review on NewsOK – August 12 edition
I decided this week to revert to a weekly blog format with a series of notes about what’s cool on NewsOK. If you like this better than random posts, let me know.
If you prefer shorter posts, let me know.
If you don’t really care, stay silent and roll your eyes.
Super 30
Barry J. Sanders topped the list. It’s fitting, since it seems like anybody slightly interested in high school or college football is talking about him. What’s the list I’m referring to? It’s the Super 30 list that The Oklahoman’s high school coverage team put together this summer. It profiles the top 30 players in the state, beginning with Norman’s George Kittle and finishing with offensive stars like Heritage Hall’s Sterling Shepard, Jenks’ Alex Ross and Sanders, who is also from Heritage Hall. Um … I’m not expert, but I think Heritage Hall will be pretty good this year.
The Boys of Summer
We put together two special presentations on NewsOK in recent weeks. The first was from our sports department — a story about a group of softball players who are all over the age of 75. It’s a great team. And the best part … they don’t replace you when you’re not effective on the field. According to the story, you’re on the team until you decide you can’t play anymore or you die (or both, I guess). Reading this story left me with a goal — I hope to one day play for the Royals.
Thrills Gone By
The other special presentation we had in recent weeks was a “Stories of the Ages” project that reflected on the deep history and memories of Oklahoma’s amusement parks. The story included all the memories of Springlake, Wedgewood Park and Frontier City. It even features earlier parks, like Belle Isle Park, Delmar Gardens and Wheeler Park. It’s a fun Stories of the Ages, especially if you grew up in Oklahoma City and have early childhood memories of these parks. I highly recommend spending some time with this story and reading all the ‘thrilling memories’ section of what our readers think about these spots.
A historic blackboard
Reporter Jane Glenn Cannon put together an interesting story this week about a blackboard with instructions from 1935 found behind a wall at Longfellow Middle School in Norman as workers were renovating the room. From the story: “Chalk writing on the board indicates a zoology teacher was instructing students on the requirements for an upcoming paper.” Zoology? Yuck. A college freshman-level zoology class was difficult for me in 1994. I’m certain I would have flunked the middle-school class back in 1935.
Gene Triplett honored
The Oklahoman’s Entertainment Editor is a soon-to-be Hall of Famer. NewsOK posted a story on Tuesday afternoon about Gene Triplett: “Raised in Oklahoma City, Triplett is a respected expert on live and recorded music, having interviewed such music industry stars as Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, and such homegrown talent as Wanda Jackson and Hoyt Axton in his nearly four-decade career.” Gene know his stuff. And he takes his craft and his coverage as seriously as anyone in our news operation. Congratulations to him.
How did we ever live without it?
I lost power Monday night as the first of a few storms swept through the Oklahoma City metro this week. The power went out at about 7:45 p.m. As I gathered the flashlights and candles in preparation for sunset, it dawned on me that I was just about to lose all the battery power in both my iPhone and iPad for the day. So … brilliant mind that I am, I used some of that juice to post that revelation to Twitter. But after that, I started to be more careful about how I used the phone. I needed to be able to make a phone call to my wife who was driving in the storm at the time. I was fully prepared to take my car charger into the garage (after manually lifting open my garage door, of course) and setting up office in the car. But thankfully, normalcy return when the lights came on at about 9:30 p.m.. Whew! Then, my 10-year-old asks the question as he headed to his night-lit room: “What did people do before there was electricity?” All I could muster for an answer was, “Read.” I had no better answer. I had the same question, but it wasn’t about electricity. My question … “What did people do before smart phones and tablets?” I can’t remember.
New faces in the sports section
Sports Editor Mike Sherman has brought on three new faces in our sports department in the past week or so. We had already announced that Jason Kersey would moving to cover the help high school scene along with Ryan Aber. Replacing him on the sports desk is Jacob Unruh, who comes to us from Lawton. The new reporter that will be covering OU football is Travis Haney, who comes to us from South Carolina. Gina Mizell is moving from Beumont, Texas, to join the OSU football coverage team. Sherman was careful to find the best fits for our audience, and we’re very confident that these additions will help us continue as the undisputed leader in OU, OSU and high school football coverage.
LOOKatOKC navigation change
We launched the new LOOKatOKC website a few months ago, and we’re happy with our we’ve managed to merge all our entertainment content in one nice and well-presented online brand. We even started experimenting with Facebook commenting on LOOKatOKC, and we’ve been pretty happy with what we’ve seen from our audience there. Our latest addition to the site is our Photo Gallery page, where you can see all the LOOKatOKC photos in one place. We’ve added that page to he main LOOKatOKC navigation. It’s there in the nav before the Swimsuit page, where we have three years worth of LOOKatOKC swimsuit edition photos.
The Oklahoman on your Kindle app
Since I bought my iPad a few months ago, I stopped using the Kindle in my possession. The Kindle app on my iPad actually served me very well, and I began reading and buying more books than I had before. But Amazon had previously decided to not allow periodicals to be available on the app. Those periodicals were only available to those with the Kindle hardware. So, I was disappointed that I couldn’t read The Oklahoman’s Kindle edition on my iPad. But about two weeks ago, that changed. Amazon, as part of their strategy to not allow in-app purchases, is now allowing periodicals to be downloaded through the app. It’s hard to follow, I know. It’s all part of a war between two digital giants — Amazon and Apple (and many others). But the bottom line is that it’s just one more way for readers to read and subscribe to our product.
User photos
The photos we have on our user-submitted gallery for August show the wide variety of weather we’ve had in recent weeks. We have photos of droughts, photos of storm damage, photos of lightning strikes, photos or happy people swimming and photos of extreme temperatures. Our process for automatically adding photos from NewsOK users is starting to work better with each month, and it’s always fun to take a look at a month’s worth of photos as a snapshot of life in Oklahoma. Add your photo for August by attaching an image in an email to pics@newsok.com.
Kevin Wilson and the radio rant
Jenni Carlson had my favorite blog post of the week when she detailed the exchange between Indiana head football coach Kevin Wilson and a couple or sports radio talk show hosts. Wilson, was the offensive coordinator for OU in recent years, was angry at how the hosts poked fun at his struggling program. Jenni’s take: “…when Zack and Jack decided to hang up on him, then tear him down, it turned them from unknowing buffoons to shady bullies.” Great stuff. And it was a great example of Jenni Carlson knowing what the NewsOK audience will be interested in.
Most-viewed article
We published an article from Carrie Coppernoll last Friday, but it really took off over the weekend and early this week, eventually leading the charge for all NewsOK articles in the past week. It was the story about the naked woman and the charity golf tournament at a city-owned course in Woodward. The story was picked up and linked to on fark.com, which gave the story more views than a normal top story on NewsOK. But the help from fark.com didn’t matter in the end. Let’s face it … a story that combines nudity, sports and politics is a guaranteed top story in any given week.
Most-viewed video
Most-viewed blog post
Jenni Carlson’s post on Wednesday about Texas A&M possibly leaving for the SEC led the blog charge this week. From Jenni: “I have just one question for Texas A&M: do you like winning or losing?” It’s been a good week for Jenni and her blog.
Most viewed photo gallery
We created a gallery of all the Oklahomans we know in the NFL, and it became the most-viewed gallery. Our users like to look at photos.
Enjoy the weekend. And thanks for reading.
Special iPad section released for Thunder season review
It’s the end of July, and you’re finally rested up from all those late nights cheering for the Oklahoma City Thunder. And now that you’ve caught up on your sleep, you’re a little depressed at the prospect of the NBA season being delayed because of the lockout.
We have produced the perfect solution for you.
It’s a 50-page special digital edition in PDF format that is optimized for viewing in iBooks on your iPad. You can find the special section in The Oklahoman’s tablet editions for iPads and Android devices.
But you don’t have to have an iPad or another tablet to see this. You can also find it on our Thunder coverage page, which just so happens to have the most complete daily coverage of the Oklahoma City Thunder anywhere.
The best thing about this special section on the 2010-11 season? It’s much more fun to read about than the depressing lockout.
